I’m standing at my kitchen sink, hands trembling, as my daughter Emily tells me, with a calm I can’t recognize, that she doesn’t want me at her wedding. In that moment, every sacrifice, every sleepless night, and every argument between us comes crashing down on me, and I realize that love doesn’t always guarantee understanding. This is my story—a mother’s painful confrontation with estrangement, the raw ache of family conflict, and the desperate hope for forgiveness.