Letters From Home Part 3
AIT & After — Coming Home to Yourself
August 5th, 2025
From B.
Today was a rough day. Coming back from the four-day break after seeing y’all — just hit hard for me. On top of that, not doing much today. We did a claymore class.
AIT is going to be interesting since it seems like a lot more sitting around until the big events. But it will be alright. Just no freedom for another eight to ten weeks. The last two should be more lenient. A lot of this is going to be mentally challenging instead of physically challenging.
Today was rough thinking about family and maybe not getting enough time. It’ll be all good. How was the drive back from here? It’s supposed to rain here till next Wednesday.
I miss y’all to death. I miss Dad and Grandad and Nee Nee to death. I never get used to leaving family. I’ve done it so much but never get used to it.
I love you to the stars and back and I wish nothing but good for your new business. I’ll call you this weekend about Ondara. Soon enough I’ll see all the family singing everyone’s birthday.
♥️ Love,
B.
August 12th, 2025
From Mom
Hey Puppy Dog,
The drive home wasn’t too bad. I have never gotten used to the goodbyes either — they never get easier. I don’t think I want them to, though. To love deeply sometimes means to feel all of the other stuff deeply too. All we can do is move through it.
There is a song that comes on every now and then that reminds me of you leaving home and heading off onto your own path. When it comes on, I sit down — no matter where I am — and I let it all move through me. The sadness, the pain, the grief, the pride. I honor the moment and the gift of being able to love so fiercely that goodbyes feel like an unbearable pain, a fist squeezing your heart.
The song is “You’re Gonna Go Far” by Noah Kahan:
So pack up your car, put a hand on your heart,
say whatever you feel, be wherever you are —
We ain’t angry at you, love.
You’re the greatest thing we’ve lost.
The birds will still sing, your folks will still fight,
The boards will still creak, the leaves will still die.
We ain’t angry at you, love.
We’ll be waiting for you, love.
This came on the other day when I was skateboarding in a parking lot. I stopped and looked up at the sky and saw the most beautiful sunset. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky other than this bushel of clouds all gathered right at the front of the setting sun — so that the sun could light up the clouds from behind, and all of the sun rays pierced through different parts of the clouds. I couldn’t help but gasp when I saw it. I would have completely missed out on this masterpiece had I not honored that moment.
I’m so lucky to have had you as my son. I always knew you were only on loan to me. You didn’t belong to me or anyone else. I was just lucky enough to be chosen as your Mom. And being your Mom is the greatest, most challenging, and most beautiful journey I have ever been on.
Seeing you graduate made my heart spill over for you. For the first time, I looked at you and saw a man standing where my sweet baby boy used to stand.
I miss you so much, puppy. So, so much. I cannot wait to see you again. I’m gonna start planning now. I hope that training is going well. Did someone get in trouble? We didn’t get a call or text last weekend. How are all of your friends doing? How was their time with their families?
I miss you.
Time will fly.
I will see you soon, love.
— Mom
After you got in your Dad’s car and headed off, I sat in my car and cried. Alone. Or I thought I would cry alone. And then Sam and my Mom came over.
We hadn’t spoken in a long time. I wasn’t sure if we ever would again. There was so much scar tissue over our relationship. But in the moment of seeing you walk into the sunset — in the culmination of goodbye — there was nothing to lose. No greater pain to be felt. And so when they came over, I opened myself up. To a relationship with my mother. A new chapter.
What follows are the messages we exchanged in the weeks after.
Unedited.
As they came.
Me → Mom
This past week, I saw the most beautiful side of you I’ve ever known — the one that emerged when you finally dropped your sword and just were my mother.
My heart has ached for that side of you for so many years. I always wanted to believe she was still there — and now I know she is.
For much of my life, I thought you didn’t love me. I carried that belief like a wound — and because of it, I settled too many times. I convinced myself that if my own mother couldn’t love me, maybe I wasn’t worth loving at all. But that belief always led me back to you.
Now I see you — the real you. The one who’s had to defend everything, all the time. I understand that kind of exhaustion. I armor up around you too. But I think we’ve both grown tired of that weight.
If you could see my heart now, you’d see the yield of your labor. You taught me strength. And most of what I’ve achieved — whether I realized it or not — was to prove I was worthy of your love.
I see you now — not just as my mother, but as a woman learning to live without always needing to fight. I don’t want to battle you. You are a formidable opponent — the one who taught me how. But I think it’s time for us to teach each other a different kind of strength. The kind that lives in softness, vulnerability, and peace.
I love you. I do need you. I always have.
So much of what you’ve seen me do, thinking I was brave or strong — I had no clue what I was doing. I just wanted you to see me.
Have a safe flight.
Mom → Me
If I were to die today, I would be the happiest woman in the world.
You have given me a beautiful gift — compassion and understanding. For most of my life, I figured nobody really cared, nobody wanted to hear me. All I’ve ever wanted was to be heard.
You are my firstborn. Until Sam and Steph came, it was just you and me against everybody else. My promise to you is to be forthcoming with my emotions and my truth. I want you to know that I am truly proud of you. No matter what the future holds, you need to always know that.
My only prayer now is to figure out a way to spend more time with you and the boys. I see them growing into such wonderful men — but it only reminds me that I’m getting older. I hope our futures can somehow intertwine. I would love to make some beautiful memories while we all can.
I love you very much.
By the way — your message was beautiful. I really do love you. I wish I could get my words out like you do.
Me → Mom
I’m fucking bawling again.
I felt your heart in every word. I know it’s not always easy for you to share what’s inside — and I want you to know that I see you. How is this the hardest part of life? We’ve been through so much. But this feels like being naked at school.
You don’t have to have perfect words. This is exactly what I wanted — just you. Vulnerable, fierce, flawed, still showing up. I think both of us carried a lot for a long time, and it’s such a relief to start putting some of it down.
Let’s keep meeting each other here — without the old armor. Rewriting what was written before we had choices.
B. was what brought us together. But we are doing the work.
When you said it was you and me against the world — I finally understood it. I feel that same bond with B. Losing it would break me.
P. and B. are night and day. P. came here knowing the rules of the world and how to move within them. B. came to question everything — to ask for more, from the world, from me, from himself. For a long time I wanted to quiet that part of him. But that wasn’t his mission. He came to wake us up.
P. reminds me that life is light. B. reminds me that love should demand more of the world.
Both of them exist because of you. You made me strong enough to take the blows of life without letting them touch my children. I could not have been as sensitive as I am without the steel you gave me.
Now I see that your hardness was love. You were teaching me to forge my own. You knew what the world does to idealistic, sensitive, beautiful women — because you had been one.
I can see you as a young girl, eyes wide and soft, wondering why kindness had no place here. You became hard because it was the only way to survive. You kept that child alive the only way you knew how. You fought and bled and cried in private, still believing someone might one day understand.
I do.
You protected us. You built daughters who could survive basic training, war zones, heartbreak — and still build beauty from the wreckage. I am here because of you.
And I would be ungrateful if I stopped here. Everything you endured — everything the women before you endured — demands that I carry the story further. We’ve been silenced, shamed, burned, and pitted against one another because our power frightens the world. No more.
I see your power. I honor it. But I hope the fight is over now, and that your soul finally gets to rest.
I now remember you. We were friends once, long before this life. Two unruly women sitting by a fire, drinking ale, laughing too loud, raising children side by side. Your fierceness was my shield; my softness was your rest. We vowed to meet again when the world was ready for us. And here we are. The same fire, the same vow. Only now the story continues through my sons.
This is how we change the world.
Mom → Me
I met your dad in California when I was 17. I fell for him hard — and he fell for me. He was sweet, funny, and very affectionate. He treated me like I was the greatest thing on earth.
When we went to Arizona, I was alone and scared. But when I met Mimi, I felt like I belonged right away. She was patient with me in a way nobody had been. She knew I had no proper upbringing, that I grew up without a mom.
But Mimi grew up in a different time. When I got pregnant with you, she was embarrassed. You’re supposed to get married first, she said. Once I started to show, I was no longer allowed at family functions. One day your dad and Mimi sat me down and told me I needed to go somewhere to finish out my pregnancy. They sent me to a shelter for unwed pregnant women in Flagstaff.
So from then on, all I had was you. I was alone and pregnant. Your dad would come on weekends but had to stay in a hotel.
After I had you, I told your dad I was moving back home with my dad — to be around family, because I didn’t think I belonged in his. I told him I’d come through Arizona so he could see you, since he hadn’t yet. When I came back, he took you in his arms and walked into the house. The next morning he told me he didn’t care what his family thought — that I was to stay, and he would take care of us.
When I told you it was you and me against everyone else, I literally meant that. You were my saving grace in a time when I felt nobody really cared. It stayed that way until I got pregnant with Stephanie — that’s when your dad and I got married, and in the Thorns’ minds, everything was right in the world.
When Mimi first saw you, she was head over heels. She held on to you so tight and didn’t want to go home. She was so helpful showing me how to be a mom to a newborn. I want you to know this not to be disappointed in her — it really wasn’t her fault, it’s just how she was raised. But it was just you and me.
You’re right that I wanted my girls to be strong and independent. I didn’t want them to be like me. What I didn’t realize was that I was being just like my dad — never showing affection, just telling everyone what to do. No real compassion or sensitivity. In his eyes, only the strong survive.
I have told Sam time and again how strong you are — facing the uncertainty, not knowing what’s around the corner, but facing it head-on. I never had that kind of courage. Especially when things with your father started getting hard. But I loved him with everything I had, and part of me still does. I hold on to the good we shared.
Your words made me relive things I haven’t thought about in years. I cannot believe how accurately you summed it all up. It feels like chains have been cut.
I know what to say in my head — I just can never get the words out. I always seem to screw it up.
I wish I could have had another day with you, face to face. You’ll always be my baby girl. My Sumu Baby. You’re one of the things I’ve done right.
I never meant to hurt you or make you feel unloved. I hope you know that. And thank you for giving us another chance.
Me → Mom
I’m glad you wrote it out — now I can read it again and again.
I could feel you in every line. Not the version the world forced you to be. Just you. Thank you for trusting me with your story. Thank you for letting me see the little girl who had to grow up so fast, and the woman who kept everything together through the storm inside.
You did so much with so little.
But you were wrong about one thing. We’re more alike than I ever admitted. The bravery you see in me — I’m fucking scared all the time. Some days I break before I even move. You already did all the things you think I’m brave for. You moved to Arizona. You prepared to raise me alone. You left Dad when you’d had enough. None of that was certain. All of it was terrifying. You faced the unknown long before I did — and maybe it didn’t feel like courage because you were tuned to survival. But that’s what courage really is.
Where do you think I learned it? You planted a seed in me — filled with your hopes and dreams, whispered in ways I didn’t understand but still carried. You showed me how to walk into the unknown with my heart broken, my body tired, my child in my arms, and still hold my head high. The part that keeps me going? That’s all you.
I even named her — Rosa. She’s the warrior in me. We’ve had conversations, her and I, because she doesn’t always trust me to lead. But lately, she’s been letting me more and more.
Part of me is sad I didn’t have you in those moments. Part of me knows it was part of my course. If I came here to learn strength, I couldn’t learn it with the most fierce warrior by my side. I had to walk alone. I was in survival mode, with one mission: to keep the world from taking from B. and P. what it took from you.
For so long I thought I was raising them in spite of your coldness. That wasn’t true — and it wasn’t fair. You were just trying to survive.
You said you replayed your childhood reading what I wrote. Did you see it through a different lens? How did it feel to revisit it now?
I feel so much — happiness that we found our way back, sadness over the time lost, grief over the pain between us. I did blame you for a lot. I think I needed to. I needed somewhere to lay my pain, and I’m sorry that meant laying it on you.
I can’t imagine not having connection to my boys. Now I understand what that must have felt like for you. It would be my greatest fear — to have my pain and sacrifices ignored or recast as villainy, when in truth there was no one who sacrificed more. Every time they hurt, I hurt. I took on people and things that terrified me because I was more terrified of my kids having to face them alone. I cried in private, fixing myself so no one knew.
Deployment — God. It felt like my heart was being ripped out of my chest. Torn between duty and the ache of missing moments I’d never get back. Hearing their voices change through the phone.
I think women are a dangerous thing to have in the military — not for the reasons people think. We don’t fight fair. We fight to kill, to burn everything to the ground, just to make it back to the pieces of our hearts we’re protecting.
We are dangerous.
I’d love a day together — just us. I want to hear your stories. I’m grateful that even after everything done to you, you tell them with such neutrality. That’s your quiet kindness — the one I never saw until now.
When we see each other next, I want to do something sacred. I want you to say a prayer in your faith, and I’ll say one in mine. Let’s each bring something to burn — a symbol of what we’re ready to release. The stories that weren’t true. The chains that kept us small. The weight that never belonged to us.
Let’s give it back to the fire.
Mom → Me
I once told my mother — thank you. Thank you for showing me how not to be like you. She was surprised. I told her that because she left, I learned how to fight. Because she left my father with six kids, and I watched what he went through to care for us — sacrificing his happiness just to make sure there was always some kind of mother in the house — it taught me that I would move heaven and earth before anyone ever took my kids from me.
I never got the chance to thank my dad. I learned so much about him after he died. Even telling you now makes me cry.
In many ways it was his coldness, his hardness, that taught me how to survive. Only after he died did I realize how much he loved me. He just didn’t know how to show it.
I watched him — every expression, every movement — trying to figure out who this man really was. I see his movements in other people now, and it always takes me back. How he cared for his animals, his plants, his trees. He was feeding them, nurturing them, watching them grow. He focused on them because he didn’t know how to focus on us.
It was through music. Dad always said he couldn’t express himself to us — but he’d find a song, play it, and say: this reminds me of you. That was his way of saying I love you. That was his way of saying I’m sorry.
He tried to say goodbye to me when he was dying, but I wouldn’t let him. He had asked all of his children for forgiveness and told each of them he loved them — except me. I wouldn’t let him. Because if he said it, that meant it was the end.
My dad and I fought, just like you and your dad. He thought distance would heal. I’ve realized now — that’s how I treated you. When you said you never wanted to talk to me again, I told myself that someday, with some distance, it would heal.
My grandchildren have brought out the side of me I’d longed for — the one I used to be before the hardness set in. It’s easy to love grandchildren. There are no expectations. They just want to be loved. You get a second chance. All the mistakes you made with your own, you know not to make with them. It’s why you had such a special relationship with Mimi. And I want to be that for my grandchildren.
I also think Mimi deserves to be thanked — for how you’ve raised your children. Without her, you wouldn’t have known the kindness, compassion, and patience required to raise your boys. So for that, I thank her.
It was coming back to the Lord that gave me strength to become who I wanted to be inside. Like your Rosa, I go for walks and talk to God to find my footing. As I grow closer, I find more peace. I know He is real, and I am thankful.
Someday I’ll leave this earth, and you’ll truly be without your parents — and it’s going to be hard. But I can do one thing: make sure you know that I love you. Before I take my last breath, you will know that you are loved. That’s one thing I didn’t get — and it’s one thing I can give you.
Me → Mom
It will be hard when you leave.
But remember who you raised.
Our hearts will break — but we’ll look back with tenderness, not criticism. I’ll carry your story so it isn’t forgotten or rewritten. So that you are remembered as a fierce warrior fueled by a love she didn’t always know how to express — but who showed up anyway. And kept showing up, even when it hurt. Especially when it hurt.
Whatever you wanted to say to your dad that you didn’t get to say — he knows, Mom. He knows.
There is no love more selfless than the love from parent to child. We don’t learn the full depth of forgiveness until our children come and crack us open, test us, break us — and still, we love them. So he knows. And any wrong you think you did by him, he’s long forgiven.
What matters is that now you see him differently. He probably just wanted to be seen too. And you see him. He lives through you.
You carry the stories of your mother and father without villainizing them. You give back what was theirs to hold, and you keep what is yours to heal. That is growth. That is raw feminine strength — to hold all of that and still soften. This is how you broke through chains of silence. This is what you taught me.
And do you see it now? Everything you admired in me came from the seeds you planted. Because you changed your path, I could change mine. You modeled reconciliation. You grew. You let love persevere, even when your kids didn’t call it love.
Even my business — when I think of the logo and the slogan, I think: holy shit. There she is. My mother. Flow over force. The wave. There was never going to be a forceful reconciliation between us. It had to flow as we each took our own paths to healing — finally to B., when all things collided, and we met as two women grieving old versions of our kids. It all had to happen. And you have touched every part of my life.
Mom, you didn’t fail us. You were exactly the mother we needed. You completed your assignment. Our evolution is proof of your success. You bore the crucible, and I was the flame born from it.
I am no longer the child who needed your approval. I am the woman you raised me to be, who carries your legacy forward. And now I have even more power — knowing I have your love. That I always had your love, even when I thought I didn’t.
B. and P. bear the crucible of knowing both dark and light in what we’ve passed them. They will be the generation that integrates the warrior and the gardener. They will be the men other men look to. Look at what beauty we’ve created, Mom. Look at what our pain became.
We did this.
You’ve been holding grief, resilience, hope, fear, and longing — all inside one body that never stopped showing up. And I didn’t see it. I was too busy surviving what you had already survived for me.
Through your armored language, you were always telling us you loved us. We just didn’t know how to hear it.
It breaks my heart to realize how heavy that’s been. And how your body has paid the price for never truly resting.
You raised me to be strong enough to take my share. And that’s my promise to you now. I’ll take back what’s mine. I’ll stop letting you carry what was never yours to hold.
I’m sorry I made you the villain in my story. I’m sorry I made you carry my pain and blame and then turned away when you were tired. I am so, so utterly sorry, Mom. Words are failing my meaning right now. But my actions will prove it in time.
If we speak of the past, we speak of the women we were — the women we’ve forgiven. Not who we are now.
And I don’t want any more apologies from you about the past, okay? It is set and we have persevered.
Only now. Only forward.
You can set the armor down.
Mom → Me
You are an amazing woman and I’m proud to call you my daughter.
I wish I could give you a hug.
Our journey and our story are not finished — and we will walk it and write it together.
I’m going to call you later to talk about Puerto Rico. Right now I’m going outside to get some vitamin D. ☀️