The Weight of Unspoken Stories

Why It Took Me 14 Years to Write Being Ben

Some stories demand to be told. Others take their time, waiting for the right moment, the right words, the right heart to carry them forward. Being Ben is the latter. For 14 years, I carried this story inside me, knowing that someday, I would need to release it into the world. But grief is a complicated thing. It doesn’t move in straight lines, and it certainly doesn’t adhere to deadlines.

In the immediate aftermath of Ben’s passing, I couldn’t begin to shape his story. My grief was too raw, and the weight of memory too heavy. Every moment I tried to write was a collision between love, loss, and regret. How could I do justice to someone so remarkable, so challenging, so utterly unforgettable?

It wasn’t just grief that delayed me. It was the complexity of the truth. Ben wasn’t an easy child, and the story of his life isn’t wrapped in a neat little bow. He was brilliant, funny, and fiercely independent, but he was also deeply wounded by the neglect he suffered before we adopted him. Parenting him meant living in a constant state of love and exhaustion, hope and heartbreak. It meant making decisions no mother should have to make—decisions that still haunt me.

The real turning point came when I started sharing pieces of his story with close friends. I watched their reactions—the tears, the laughter, the moments when their breath caught in their throats. I realized that Being Ben wasn’t just my story to hold onto. It was a story that needed to be shared, because within it were universal truths about love, loss, resilience, and what it means to be a mother when love alone is not enough.

Now, after years of holding this story close, I’m finally ready to share it. And I hope that in doing so, Ben’s life—and the lessons he left behind—will find a home in the hearts of others.