After my adoptive son’s death, it was easy to believe he hated me and our final estrangement was the truth. But the deeper parts of me protested. This piece is a deep, messy, human excavation of what really happened: the fights, the near-reconciliation, the betrayal, the grief, and ultimately, the truth that never stopped living underneath. This is for anyone who’s lost someone during a hard chapter, and still wonders if it was real.

This is the second chapter in a series about love, loss, and learning to stop carrying the weight of someone else’s story. It’s heavy. It’s honest. And if you’re grieving, I hope you know there was probably nothing you could have done.