The Army You Build to Protect Your Children: Open Ended: The Echoes of Redemption

When you become a parent, protecting your children becomes part of who you are. I go to bed each night praying for the safety of my children, even as adults. I still anticipate their needs, think ten steps ahead, and worry about the things that could happen. No matter how old they get, a part of me is always connected to them. Even when I give myself permission to take a little time for myself, that instinct to protect never really goes away.

But what happens when the unthinkable happens and you can’t protect them?

A few years ago, I found myself in that very position when my daughter was hit by a drunk driver in the middle of the night, hours away from me. There’s a helplessness that comes with knowing your child is hurt and you’re too far away to be there in the moment.

As an author, I often take personal experiences and weave them into my stories. It’s one way I bring real emotions to the page, and it’s why this became one of the themes in Cora’s story in Open Ended: The Echoes of Redemption.

Cora travels to Delaware for her college reunion, taking a moment away from the responsibilities that have shaped so much of her life. Back home, her daughter, Avalina, is on a preschool field trip. It’s an ordinary day until Avalina goes missing.

Suddenly, Cora’s world changes. She’s in Delaware, separated from her daughter by distance and desperate to get home. There is no time to process what is happening or prepare herself for what comes next. She has to get back to Avalina. And so, she flies home.

One of the beautiful things about motherhood is that you don’t always know you’re building an army. I wanted to highlight this in Open Ended: The Echoes of Redemption: how an army can form around you before you even realize you need one.

Cora’s story captures the desperation of a mother facing a nightmare no parent wants to imagine. But it also shows what happens when the people around her refuse to let her face that nightmare alone.

I wanted to highlight more than the fear and uncertainty surrounding a missing child. I wanted to shine a light on the people who come together when everything is on the line.

Who Is in Your Army?

Think of five people in your life who would drop everything at a moment’s notice to be there for you.

Who came to mind? Those are your people. They’re your army.

As parents, we want to believe we can protect our children from everything. We want to believe that if we love them enough, plan carefully enough, and do all the right things, we can keep the world from hurting them. But life doesn’t offer those guarantees.

What we can do is build relationships rooted in trust and recognize the people who genuinely care. Sometimes, the army you need is already there. You just don’t know it until the moment arrives when you need them most.

That’s part of Cora’s journey in Open Ended: The Echoes of Redemption—a mother’s determination, a missing daughter, and the unexpected army that forms when everything changes.

Because when it comes to our children, we will move mountains to bring them home and we are stronger when we don’t have to move them alone.