Crowned by Grace: From Daddy’s Love to the Father’s Embrace - Part 3

Grief has a way of following you, no matter how much life moves on. For me, it clung like a shadow—always present, always heavy.

Eventually, life did move forward. My mom found love again, and a new man stepped into her life. He was kind in his own way, but he wasn’t my father. No one could ever be him. And no matter how much time passed, I refused to let anyone take his place. This new man couldn’t tell me what to do. He wasn’t Papi, and he never would be.

My mom’s new love was hers, not mine. I carried that resentment everywhere, letting it fester and grow alongside the grief I still wasn’t allowed to process. Anger consumed me, fueled by the shifting dynamics of my home. My baby sister, sweet and innocent, was soaking up all the attention. She was the “baby,” the light in the darkness for everyone. But for me? She became a symbol of everything I wasn’t getting: the love, the tenderness, the space to grieve.

Jealousy surged through me like a tidal wave, unchecked and unseen. I was a ticking time bomb, my rage waiting for the right moment to explode.

Life didn’t stop for my pain. At the urging of my mom’s new partner, I was enrolled in Catholic school in the 6th grade. New school. New borough. New life. And I hated all of it.

But even as I sat in those pews, even as I confessed my sins to the man in the box and sang in the choir, I carried the same questions:

Why, God? Why did You take my father? Why do You keep taking from me? What did I do wrong? I’ve done everything I’m supposed to do—my sacraments, altar serving, Sunday school—what more do You want?

The silence was deafening.

And then, the streets spoke.

I had my uncle, Player was his name, who stepped in when my father passed. He became a figure of strength, a protector in my life. But the streets of New York City have their own whispers. Born and raised in the hoods of NYC, he fought battles I couldn’t fully see. Music like Dancing with the Devil spoke to the hopelessness of street life, a soundtrack to survival for many. But for my uncle, those whispers pulled him into a world where the only way out seemed to be death or prison.

When I lost him, the ground beneath me cracked even further. Yet again, my family grieved. Yet again, I suffered silently.

I felt abandoned all over again. Why, God? Why do You keep taking the men I love?

By the time I reached high school, I was a hurricane of emotions: anger, bitterness, revenge, jealousy, sorrow. I moved through life like a wounded animal, striking at anyone who came too close. The lies I told, the people I hurt—they haunted me for years. But back then, hurting others felt like the only way to cope. After all, hurt people hurt people.

And then I met my first love.

He was everything I thought I needed: strong, attentive, someone who saw me in a way I hadn’t felt seen in years. We were young, broken, and deeply in love. For seven years, we built a life together—or at least, that’s what I told myself.

But we were two wounded souls, carrying baggage neither of us knew how to unpack. He came from a broken home too, with pain that mirrored mine in many ways. People looked at us and saw a power couple, two forces to be reckoned with. And we were a force, all right—a force of chaos and pain, tangled in a love that couldn’t survive the weight of our wounds.

Eventually, we ended things, like two soldiers retreating from battle—scarred, broken, and unsure if healing was even possible. And with his departure came yet another loss.

Another man gone.

Another reminder of the brokenness I couldn’t escape.

But here’s the truth I didn’t know then: God was never absent. Even in the silence, even in the losses, He was writing a story I couldn’t yet understand.

This is where one chapter ends and another begins.

Stay tuned for my next blog, where I’ll share how God’s grace began to meet me in my brokenness, piece by piece, and how I slowly started to rebuild—not just my faith but my sense of worth and purpose.