The Daughter That Waited On The Steps

There is a unique kind of grief that comes from loving someone who is still alive, yet never truly shows up for you. It isn't a grief marked by funerals or condolences. It's a quiet mourning that begins in childhood and, if left unhealed, follows us into adulthood.

There are wounds that leave bruises.

Then there are the wounds that quietly build a home inside a child's heart.

Some children wait for bedtime stories.

Some wait for birthdays.

Some wait for Christmas morning.

And some...

Wait on front steps....

Those front steps is where my story begins...

I remember the ritual better than I remember my father's face.

I'd wake before the sun because today was the day. He said he was coming. He promised we'd spend the day together. I'd carefully choose my prettiest dress, button my little shoes, smooth my hair, and study myself in the mirror.

I thought if I looked beautiful enough...

He would remember me.

He would choose me.

Then I'd wait.

Every passing car made my heart leap. Every sound of tires on pavement sent me running to the edge of the porch. I'd sit on those warm concrete steps for hours, watching shadows move across the yard while my hope slowly slipped away with the afternoon sun.

Eventually my mother would quietly say, "Come inside."

He wasn't coming.

Again.

Children become storytellers long before they become adults.

We don't understand addiction, selfishness, emotional immaturity, or broken promises.

So we create stories that make the pain survivable.

I never thought...

"My father couldn't love the way I needed."

Instead I believed...

"I wasn't pretty enough."

That belief became a spell I unknowingly cast over myself.

It followed me into adolescence.

Into womanhood.

Into every mirror I stood before.

Every wrinkle.

Every pound.

Every gray hair.

Some part of me was still that little girl on the porch wondering if, this time, she would finally be enough to be chosen.

How heartbreaking it is that children almost always blame themselves for the shortcomings of adults.

As witches, we speak often of curses.

Sometimes the oldest curse isn't cast beneath a full moon.

Sometimes it is whispered by a six-year-old sitting on the front steps.

"I'm not enough."

Those words become ancestral magic of the darkest kind.

They echo through decades unless someone is brave enough to break them.

Then I became a mother.

My children never waited on the porch wondering if I would come.

They never questioned whether they mattered.

Not because I was a perfect mother.

I wasn't.

I was tired.

I made mistakes.

I doubted myself.

I cried after they went to bed.

But I showed up.

Again.

And again.

And again.

Because somewhere inside me lived a little girl who knew exactly what it felt like to wait.

Now I have the breathtaking privilege of being Mimi.

When my granddaughters run into my arms, I don't see perfection.

I see presence.

I kneel down.

I listen to every story.

I keep my promises.

If I tell them we're baking cookies, we're baking cookies.

If I promise a tea party, the teacups will be waiting.

Children don't remember every gift we buy them.

They remember whether they felt safe.

Whether they felt wanted.

Whether someone delighted in them.

That is the legacy I choose.

Not perfection.

Presence.

People often ask how someone could cut off a parent.

As if one argument or one holiday gone wrong could explain a lifetime.

But estrangement is rarely born in a single moment.

It is born in thousands of moments.

Thousands of broken promises.

Thousands of disappointments.

Thousands of tiny funerals no one else can see.

Each unanswered phone call.

Each forgotten birthday.

Each empty chair.

Each child left waiting on the steps.

Eventually something inside us grows too weary to keep hoping.

Going no contact is rarely an act of revenge.

It is an act of survival.

It is the heartbreaking realization that continuing to reach for someone who repeatedly cannot—or will not—reach back is slowly costing you your own peace.

Whether you are a daughter or a son, there comes a moment when you must ask yourself a question that no child should ever have to ask:

How many more years will I spend auditioning for a role I was born deserving?

Children should never have to earn the love of a parent.

Not by being prettier.

Not by being quieter.

Not by achieving more.

Not by forgiving more.

Not by shrinking themselves into someone easier to love.

One of the greatest myths is that family must always remain together.

But nature teaches us something different.

Even the oldest tree knows when to release its leaves.

The moon teaches us that letting go is part of every sacred cycle.

The raven teaches us that wisdom often requires leaving what no longer feeds the soul.

The Crone teaches us that boundaries are not punishments.

They are sacred circles.

They are the ancient magic that says,

"This pain may have created me, but it will not continue to consume me."

When we go no contact, many people think we are closing a door on someone else.

The deeper truth is this:

We are finally opening one within ourselves.

There is grief.

So much grief.

Because we are not simply mourning the parent we had.

We are mourning the parent we deserved.

The birthdays that never happened.

The conversations that never came.

The apologies that may never be spoken.

The grandfather or grandmother our children may never know.

We grieve a future that never existed except in hope.

And hope...

Hope can be one of the hardest things to bury.

As witches, we know rituals cannot erase pain.

But they can give pain somewhere to rest.

If you have walked this path, perhaps create your own quiet ritual.

Light a black candle for what has ended.

Light a white candle for what still lives within you.

Hold an old photograph if you have one—not to reopen the wound, but to honor the child who survived it.

Write every unspoken word onto paper.

Every disappointment.

Every longing.

Every "Why didn't you come?"

Read it aloud.

Cry if you need to.

Scream if you must.

Then burn the paper safely, watching the smoke carry away the weight you were never meant to carry.

Scatter the cooled ashes beneath an old oak, into moving water, or return them to the earth.

Not because you are forgetting.

But because you are no longer willing to carry what was never yours.

The ritual is not for the parent.

It is for the child who still lives inside you.

The one still sitting on those steps.

Go back for them.

Take their hand.

Tell them gently,

"You don't have to wait anymore."

"You can come home now."

My father will always be part of my story.

But he no longer writes the ending.

Today when I look into the mirror, I try to see what that little girl never could.

She was never forgotten because she wasn't beautiful.

She was beautiful from the very beginning.

The one who couldn't see her...

Was never her.

So if you are reading this as a daughter...

Or as a son...

If you are carrying the invisible ache of a parent who never became who you needed them to be...

Know this.

You were never too much.

You were never not enough.

You were never unworthy of being chosen.

Some parents simply lack the capacity to love the way a child deserves.

That truth belongs to them.

Not to you.

The child who waited can become the parent who stays.

The parent who stays can become the grandparent who delights.

And in doing so, the curse that traveled silently through generations finally comes to an end.

That is the deepest magic I know.

Not revenge.

Not forgetting.

Not pretending it never hurt.

But choosing, with weathered hands and an open heart, to end the story of abandonment with yourself.

That is the work of the Crone.

That is ancestral healing.

That is the most sacred spell we will ever cast.

Many Blessings J