One of the pleasures of ending the year is the chance to look back and reflect. It is a time for you and me to take stock of what mattered, what carried us, and what asked us to bend without breaking, so we do not step into a new season dragging old regret behind us. For me, 2025 was a year filled with personal grief and dread, yet I kept a promise I made to myself: I would be my husband’s Florence Nightingale. I would show up with tenderness and grit. I would stay devoted, even as I watched the man I love become harder to reach. And in the midst of it, I practiced a kind of self care that was not pretty or performative, but necessary: I kept going, one faithful choice at a time.

Though it was an extremely sad and difficult year, I walked into 2026 with no regrets. When I realized it, I shocked myself, and then I felt something I had not felt in a long time: pride. My body and mind felt like a fresh breath of air. I felt peace, lightness, self-trust, and freedom. I was at peace with who I was and who I was becoming. That peace, I learned, is also self care. It is what happens when you do not abandon yourself.

No Regret

I had no regrets because I made choices that lined up with what I knew was right. There is a quiet dignity that comes over you when you can look back and say, “I did the best I could.” Not the best in some imaginary life where nothing hurts and no one leaves, but the best in my real life, with its burdens and heartbreaks. That kind of dignity is private. It is internal. It is a light you carry when no one is clapping, when no one is watching, when you are simply doing what must be done.

How I Carried On

How did I carry on? I took ownership of my husband’s health with absolute dedication, and I took ownership of how to handle my grief with estrangement, focusing on my actions, not theirs. That distinction mattered more than I can explain. Chronic grief can turn the days into fog, and estrangement can make you feel as though your life is being controlled by someone else’s silence. But I learned, slowly and painfully, that I could not control the choices of my adult children. I could only control my own.

That approach somewhat eased the daily pain of grief, though I will admit it did not help much. I want to be honest about that. Grief is not impressed by discipline. It does not leave because you behave well. There were nights when I lay in bed with the lights off and said to myself, “I don’t care if I don’t wake up in the morning.” I am so tired. I am so sad. Those words did not come from drama. They came from depletion. They came from the kind of exhaustion that seeps into your bones when loss becomes your constant companion. In those moments, self care looked like surviving the night, telling the truth, and trying again in the morning.

Layered Grief and Regret

At times I think it is a miracle that I survived the past few years. No husband to talk to, not in the way a husband talks to you when his mind is clear and his spirit is fully present. No family to love me, not in the way a mother expects to be loved by the people she gave her life to. But I did.

I am not the woman I used to be because I am carrying an enormous emotional load. Anyone in my position would feel exhausted, lonely, and overwhelmed. I have what I call layered grief: grief for my ultimate concierge, who I am slowly losing while he is still with me, and grief for a family I didn’t have access to.

Layered grief is not tidy. It does not arrive in clean chapters, allowing you to close one before beginning the next. It stacks itself. It overlaps. It doubles back. One day you are mourning the gradual disappearance of the companion you relied on for decades. The next day you are mourning the absence of your grandchildren’s voices, the missed holidays, the ordinary moments you would have cherished, and the ache of being left out of your own story. It is grief without closure, grief that repeats itself like a song you never asked to hear. When grief repeats itself, self care becomes less about fixing and more about tending: tending your heart, your energy, your nervous system, your ability to take another breath.

No Regrets

But on a positive note, dear reader, what I am trying to say is this: I survived because my actions, unbeknownst to me, were subtle and wise. Not strategic, but instinctive. I wasn’t trying to be virtuous or noble. I was being myself.

I cared for my ultimate concierge because I love him. I did not do it for applause. I did not do it to be “a good woman.” I did it because love, when it is real, has a stubborn way of staying. Love, too, can be self care when it is rooted in devotion, not self sacrifice that empties you out.

And I accepted accountability only for my actions, not those of my adult children, because I recognized that was all I could control. I could grieve their absence. I could long for reconciliation. I could pray for their return. But I could not force their hearts open. So I did the only thing left for a mother who wanted to remain intact: I kept my side of the street clean. I chose not to become bitter. I chose not to lash out. I chose not to live my life auditioning for someone else’s approval. That is self care, too: protecting your spirit from what will corrode it.

Peace Over Regret

When 2026 arrived, I noticed something startling. The realization came quietly, but it stopped me cold. After everything, loss, exhaustion, longing, I was at peace with how I had lived. I was at peace because I had not abandoned myself. I had not betrayed my values. I had loved as best I could. I had endured as best I could. And that is why I had no regrets. Peace does not erase what happened. Peace simply means you can live with yourself when you look back. That is one of the deepest forms of self care I know.

My Door Opened in 2026

And then, in the first week of January 2026, the universe finally caught up with my efforts. Suddenly, doors opened, burdens lifted, and a big part of my life steadied. It felt like a special fairy spread her wings and dropped fairy dust all over me. Why? Because, with no fanfare or discussion, my entire family came back into my nest.

I went from having no family (can you imagine?) to everyone returning. There was no drama. No talking about the past. My daughters reached out with loving notes and phone calls, and I welcomed them with open arms. The whole tribe followed.

My grandchildren are calling to tell me how much they missed me and loved me, and one grandson, in medical school, is moving into our condo in the sky at the end of this month for two months. Even writing that sentence makes me pause, because reconciliation can feel surreal when you have lived on the other side of silence for so long. Hope becomes a dangerous thing when you are wounded, and many of us lock it away for self-protection. And yet, here it was, not as a fantasy, but as my life. And I will tell you something else: self care is letting yourself feel the joy when it arrives, instead of bracing for the next heartbreak.

Peace is Power

What is my reaction? There was not one reaction. There was a cascade of them, often all at once, and all positive. Why all positive? Because I know that peace is power. It is the kind of strength that protects your health, your sleep, your joy, and your future.

Peace does not mean forgetting. Peace does not mean the past did not hurt. Peace means I refuse to live there. I do not have the strength, the will, or the nature to dwell in what cannot be changed. I know it from my daughters’ words and from their actions: they love, respect, and want me to be in their lives. And I believe estrangement will never be part of my life story again.

Rebuilding requires gentleness. Reconciliation is fragile at first. Peace protects it. Peace gives it room to grow. Peace keeps the door open.

Celebrate Peace

Receiving is its own kind of courage. It means letting joy in again. It means allowing warmth back into the rooms of your life. It means trusting the present without demanding that it prove itself a hundred times over. Peace is what makes that possible, because peace keeps my heart open and my mind clear. Peace gives me the steadiness to accept love when it arrives, and the wisdom to protect what is tender as it returns. Peace allows me to receive without interrogation, and that is a gift I am finally giving myself. That is self care.

And truth be told, I don’t think it will be hard. I am a woman who knows how to build a nest. I am a woman who knows how to love. I have been practicing endurance for years, and now I am practicing grace, the kind that comes from choosing peace on purpose, again and again. Amen.