I never knew my parents.
Not really.
At just three years old, they handed me over to my grandparents and vanished — no goodbye, no explanation, no letters or visits.
I grew up thinking it was my fault.
That I was too much.
Too hard to raise.
Too broken to keep.
My grandparents never said that out loud. But they also never told me the truth about why I was with them either.
So I asked — at 12, at 16, at 18.
And every time, they gave me the same answer:
“They loved you.”
“But they couldn’t stay.”
It wasn’t until their final days in hospice that I got more than just a gentle lie.
One afternoon, as I sat beside my grandmother’s bed, she reached for my hand and whispered something I had waited nearly 30 years to hear.
“You weren’t left because of you .”
“You were left because of them. ”
She explained everything.
How my mom struggled with addiction.
How my dad chose his new girlfriend over us.
How they begged her and my grandfather to take me in — not forever, but “just until things get better.”
That better never came.
Because they never came back.
After that conversation, I finally understood.
I wasn’t unwanted.
I wasn’t broken.
I was just born into a life that didn’t have space for love.
And now?
I carry the only real family I ever had in photos and memories.
Because sometimes, the people who raise you are the ones who deserve the title of “mom” and “dad” more than those who gave you life.
And sometimes, hearing the truth before it’s too late is the last gift they can give you.