by Leslie Coy

I would like to confess something that many of you might be able to resonate with: I am an insufferably proud parent, and I have 5 kids, so that’s a lot of pride and quite likely a lot of insufferability. Now, please don’t mishear me. I am not going to claim that my kids are the smartest or the kindest or whatever (insert any ridiculous superlative of choice). I am not likely raising the next president of the United States. And I’m pretty sure none of my progeny will become professional athletes, end world hunger, or discover the proverbial cure for cancer. So, I don’t think my pride is driven by wordly definitions of success or achievement. What I land on and chew over, often endlessly, are the beautiful-to-me ways I witness my kids showing up, facing challenges, owning strengths, correcting mistakes, or repenting of hurts they’ve caused.  

In the end, perhaps pride is not quite the right word. I think I’m simply fascinated by these humans God has entrusted to my care. Watching these souls grow and develop and become is the joy of a lifetime. Side note, I’m often asked how I ended up with so many kids (which is rude, but we’ll table that for now), and my response is it’s because it was so easy to get caught up and excited about who we would get next. Child-raising is a discovery process, and the surprises are most sweet.

Over the years, my husband and I developed a routine at the end of the week in which we would serve the kids a quick and simple evening meal, put them to bed early, and then have a “date night” at home. This was our way of carving out time for ourselves amidst the busyness of raising a large family combined with the demands of his hectic work schedule. Very often our conversations would circle back and forth around the kids, our joy and enjoyment both mutual and infectious. And it is this that I miss the most.  

Many of us find ourselves parenting on our own, whether it’s through divorce, death, abandonment, incarceration, military deployment, choice…there are myriad ways we find ourselves here, and almost all of them hurt. It is therefore impossible to speak of solo parenting without addressing grief. 

Grief becomes a constant companion, one whom we slowly become accustomed to and whose presence can become an unlikely comfort. After my husband died, and I was thrust into solo parenting, my heart became a battleground where loneliness and insecurity fought for territory like some unholy turf war. I wondered how I would ever shepherd these tender hearts through such a trauma, how would I ever learn to do this well, how could I possibly be up to such a task?  I stood, daunted and afraid, staring down the long tunnel of my future, wondering how on earth I was going to make this work.

And yet it was my grief that asked me to just watch. Watch them. Be curious about them.  Discover them as they discover life and themselves. This is what my husband and I did together, and it became my mission to watch for him, for us both. In the watching I don’t keep him alive, but I do keep him present. His love for our children was fierce, almost unreasonable. I often thought he surprised himself by how much he loved these kids of ours. And so what I miss the most is the shared experience of enjoying our kids together. No one else on this earth loves my kids like I do, not anymore. Where there were two, one remains.  

I don’t know why or how you find yourself parenting solo. But I do know that yours is a beautiful, sweet, heavy burden. I know it is often lonely and intensely isolating. I know you are likely so busy and overwhelmed you don’t know if you’re coming or going. I know that you are intimately acquainted with grief, the lover you never wanted. I know that many days, all you can do is tread water and gasp for air. And I know that, somewhere and somehow, in your wonder about the why’s and the what if’s, you are still looking for hope. So much hope. This is our job, our calling if you will. We watch, and we hold the hope.  

Friend, if you are unable to locate your hope, I encourage you to reach out. This is hard and holy work, and as lonely as you may be, you don’t have to do this alone.