Part 4 – Storms and Strongest Threads
This post is part of From Unravelling to Weaving: My Journey to Recollections Within–a foundational, five-part series sharing the personal journey that gave life to Recollections Within. Each chapter will explore the moments, losses, and revelations that shaped the heart of this community.
⚠️ Content Note: This post contains references to sexual assault, depression, self-harm, and suicidal thoughts. Please take care while reading, and step away if you need to. If these experiences resonate with your own, I encourage you to reach out to someone you trust or seek professional support. You are not alone. 💚
The Calm Before
After leaving the cage of a life that no longer fit, I stepped into a new beginning. In the summer of 2019, I moved from the only home I had ever known in Canada to the United States. That August, I married my beautiful, sweet husband and we began building a life filled with love and intention. For the first time in decades, I felt grounded in myself and in the sanctuary we were creating together.
But storms have a way of arriving just when life feels most secure.
The Storm
COVID arrived in early 2020, and like everyone else, our lives were shaken.
That summer, my daughter went to visit her father in Canada. What was meant to be a summer trip turned into a painful custody battle. In November of 2020 the Supreme Court of my home province finally ordered her home. Those months felt like an eternity. The terror of being unable to protect her was something I will never forget. The helpless feeling of watching as forces outside your control pull at your child is something only those who have lived it can truly understand.
When she was home safe again, we began settling into the rhythms of daily life. In March 2021, we bought our home. She adapted to school, made friends, and had a therapist who supported her. On the surface, things looked steady. But in 2023, shadows resurfaced. My daughter began to spiral into depression. She withdrew, grew increasingly hopeless, and started self-harming. The light within her was being smothered.
In January 2024, I rushed her to the hospital because she told her doctor she was suicidal. That day still rings in my memory like a bell I can’t unhear. While I knew the steps to take, nothing brings you to your knees quite like it. All we could do during that time was love and support her and do our best to keep her safe from herself.
Just a few months later, in May, her buried memories surfaced. One devastating night, she remembered something unthinkable. My beautiful baby was sexually assaulted when she was only nine years old, while she was staying in her father’s household. It happened after the point she should have been returned home to me. The perpetrator was the adult son of his partner, a grown man in his twenties.
The truth explained so much of her pain. In retrospect, it made perfect sense that her mind may have unconsciously sensed the memory resurfacing from the deep and sought to escape a reality it couldn’t yet face.
The truth also tore me open as a mother. I was consumed by grief, fury, and helplessness. Nothing prepares you for hearing that your child was harmed so profoundly, or for grappling with the rage of how things might have been if circumstances had unfolded as they should have.
Surrounded by Women
Amidst this devastation, a different kind of moment unfolded. In June 2024, my sister and my adult daughter came to visit. They traversed the continent to get to her as soon as it could be arranged. Together, the three of us encircled my daughter as women have done for millennia. We gathered in the water at the river.
There, my sister led us through a Pagan ritual of cleansing, release, and renewal. She called to the 4 directions and sang a song of healing.
My daughter was surrounded by her women — her mother, her sister, her aunt. She was held in fierce love and witness while the river carried away what no one should ever have had to hold. That day was not a magic cure, but it was a turning point. She knew she was deeply loved, that her women would travel any distance to share their strength, their love, and their power with her.
Something shifted. With a new therapist more qualified to hold her trauma, with medication for her newly diagnosed Hashimoto’s and ADHD, and with the strength of her circle, she started to reclaim her life. By the time she entered high school in August 2025, her spirit was lighter, she was laughing again, and stepping into her new beginning.
This young woman is my hero.
And not only her women. Beside her, every single day, is the man who chose her as his own. My husband stepped into the role of father with a steadiness and love that could never be demanded, only freely given. His love is not tied to blood, but to presence, consistency, and care. In him, she has witnessed that fatherhood is not about biology, but about the daily act of showing up. He has been the protector, listener and safe place that she has so deeply needed. There are good, pure-hearted men in this world, and we are so fortunate to have found him.
Resilience & Vision
Walking with her through the fire and seeing her emerge stronger reminded me that healing is a winding path with setbacks and breakthroughs. It requires support, community, and the courage to keep choosing life, even when it feels impossible.
Those months carved something deep into me. They showed me that resilience isn’t about never breaking, because my god… we break.
It’s the love, support, and unfathomable strength that help us stitch ourselves back together.
We are Your Women
My daughter’s healing shaped my vision for Recollections Within. I realized I needed to create a sanctuary where all women could bring their storms, their unravellings, and their hardest truths, and know they would be met with the wide-open arms of their women. Because if my daughter could walk through the darkness and begin to heal in the arms of her women, then every woman deserves that same grace and space to heal.
And just maybe, this community could be your river.
This chapter is a testament to resilience. Not only mine, not only my daughter’s, but all of ours. Life will hand us storms, but it will also hand us the threads we need to weave something new.
In the 5th, and final, part of this series, I’ll share how all of these threads: grief, love, storms, and resilience, came together to create Recollections Within. And how you, too, are an essential part of its design.
✨ What storms have tested your strength? How did you endure or grow? I invite you to share in the comments or in The Common Thread forum.
None of this is possible without your voice.
To start from the beginning, visit Part 1 – A Whisper That Meant Everything
Photo Credit: Сергей Леденёв
