People Are Sharing The Most Inappropriate, Cringe, And Straight-Up Horrific Things They've Witnessed At Weddings
Well, over on Quora, people have been discussing some of their most horrible wedding experiences as a guest, the tackiest thing they've seen at someone else's wedding, and the most unusual thing they've seen a guest do at a wedding. So here are some nuptial-day horror stories to celebrate the wedding season being in full swing.
1."My dad's only brother got married when my siblings and I were about 7 through 14 years old. My uncle was convinced that my siblings and I would be horribly behaved at the service and the reception. We were separated from everyone because he feared what we might say or do..."
"...My mom sat with the kids at the furthest table while my dad and grandmother sat at the head table. My uncle's brand new wife had an uncle. This uncle took great advantage of the open bar. He was loud and unruly, and he chose to urinate in the hotel's fancy water fountain and then puke on OUR table. So much for knowing who was well-mannered and who wasn't."
—Lisa D.
2."At my daughter's wedding, a 350-pound man took it into his head to try a pole dance. He did a very um…wavy hip thrust first, then launched onto the pole. It ended on the floor. Some people just shouldn't drink."
—Jill G.
3."I was a guest at my sorority sister's wedding (I will name her Amanda). We shared a room in the sorority house, so we were close. The day before the wedding, another sister (we'll call her Rachel) and I traveled an hour and a half to get to our friend's hometown, where the wedding was being held. Rachel and I were not bridesmaids, but we would spend the night at Amanda's house with the rest of the wedding party..."
"... She had invited us to prove we were special even if we weren't bridesmaids. From the minute Rachel and I stepped into the house, Amanda's mother had us doing little tasks: picking up the pizza, setting the table, etc. They were little things, but still things you don't ask of a guest. The next morning, Amanda's mom woke us up. We had to fetch breakfast, bobby pins, hairspray, and shoes. I had to fix my hair. I used to fix hair for all the girls living in the house then, but I had no prior knowledge I would be required to style the entire bridal party and bride. Rachel had to iron Amanda's dress. By this time, we realized we hadn't been invited as special guests but as servants. We were late for the reception after the wedding because we had to gather all the residue left after seven girls finished prepping for a formal event. Dinner had already been served, and Amanda's mother immediately herded us to the kitchen and instructed us to wash dishes. I was in shock, even more so when Rachel picked up a dish. But I started laughing when she tossed it to the floor. We left, went to McDonald's, and never spoke to Amanda again."
—Emeligh C.
4."My wife and I went to a relative's wedding many years ago. The church wedding was simple and fine. The reception was in a hall; I don't remember if a band or DJ existed. The drinks were fine. They asked everyone to sit at their tables, and the announcer called the table numbers. A row of staff served the buffet, so guests didn't just dig in. The main course was pre-sliced turkey. As we sat and waited for our number to be called, we watched as smiling people walked past with plates piled high with food. We were getting hungry!..."
"...Finally, they called our table, and the serving trays were empty! The servers were trying to scrape mashed potatoes in a failed effort to give the remaining guests in line a scoop full. And a spoonful of vegetables. The turkey was long gone. To add to the disappointment, the bus people were clearing tables of plates still laden with food! Lots of slices of turkey and two big scoops of potatoes are all floating in gravy! It was pretty clear that the servers had bad judgment, loaded up plates with double servings, and simply ran out of food before the final tables were served. We stayed until the end and ate the wedding cake. We stopped At McDonald's on our way back to the hotel. I later learned that the parents who paid for the reception were mortified and got a big chunk of cash back from the venue."
—Tom G.
5."Many, many years ago, a colleague from the Netherlands sent me an invitation to his wedding in Amsterdam. Since I live in Norway, going to a wedding in Amsterdam is quite costly between flights, hotel, and food (plus a wedding gift, of course), but I was touched that he wanted me there as the only one of our international crowd of colleagues, so I decided to take my savings and go..."
"...I called him up, and he was very pleased that I intended to come, and told me that he had gone to great lengths to get my address (this was before the time of emails and social media). We chatted about his new bride, who I was eager to meet, and I asked him for hotel recommendations and what he would like as a wedding gift. He ended the conversation by saying, 'Oh, just one last thing: The invitation is for the religious service only, not for the dinner party; I hope you don't mind. We wanted it to be a small wedding.' I was so surprised that I just said: 'Of course not, I understand.' But then I sat down to think. It's one thing to ask someone in town to pop by and see you get married. No costs are incurred (beyond a metro ticket), and no gift is expected. But to invite someone who would have to spend $2,000 to see you get married and then not invite them to the party? I made up an excuse and did not go. And I never spoke to him again."
—Solfrid C.
6."They ran out of food at a Jewish wedding. This is pretty much a mortal sin in Judaism. If you're not sending your guests home with leftovers, you didn't serve enough food..."
"...The couple were Orthodox Jews. They had their reception catered by the local kosher Chinese restaurant, which was ill-equipped to deal with the fact that, when faced with a buffet, most people will pile their plate with far more food than they can eat, and to hell with the people whose table numbers are called last (like me). I got to the buffet, and every single tray was empty. The people at the restaurant catering had to cook up an additional batch of food. This took over an hour. In the meantime, I was getting angry. I should have taken my gift and left. I didn't because I am a lady. And it took them over a year to send a thank-you card."
—Nancy H.
7."My MOH left my wedding reception early (right after dinner), and to add insult to injury, she had the nerve to go to the bar and ask the bartender for two bottles of wine to take with her from our open bar. She and her boyfriend wanted to party in their hotel room for the night. She didn't agree with my choice of husband, which I knew, but as my MOH expected, she should have been there for at least until after the first dance, cutting of the cake, and bouquet toss. She never should have agreed to be in the wedding party! I was shocked as I had always thought she had more class than that!"
—Kathy H.
8."I knelt at the altar to pray with the pastor at the most somber part of my wedding ceremony. There were giggles from the first few rows of guests. I found out later that, as I knelt down, big red clearance stickers showed on the bottom of my shoes. Yes, I am that girl. You can't take me anywhere."
—Angela M.
9."The groom's 'friends' refused to leave. This was a family who was fairly wealthy, and the wedding was a big deal: The venue was upscale, with a fully stocked bar, a live band, and the works. Well, the reception went well, except the groom's friends wouldn't leave at the end. The meal had been served and cleared, and the bride and groom had left, as had most of the guests. But the caterers, the waitstaff, and the bride and groom's family couldn't leave until the guests had..."
"... They waited and waited and waited while these rude idiots drained the bar, harassed the band to keep playing, and danced. Of course, they had all gotten drunk and were singing and swinging their glasses and telling bawdy jokes and 'flirting' with the female workers, holding everyone up until the wee hours. The family was too polite to tell them to leave."
—Lisa N.
10."My nephew's wedding was a black tie affair, and the woman he married came from a conservative Jewish family, so as was appropriate, I wore a tea-length dress and a hat, as did most of the women. Except for one..."
"She wore white. Not a dress, but an actual gown with a floofy skirt and a train, and a little tiara-type headpiece with a veil over her face. Not wearing white at a wedding, assuming it's traditional and the bride is wearing white, is just good manners. Dressing up like a bride is on the far side of tacky."
—Eleanor L.
11."Many years ago now, I attended a smaller wedding. The bride wore a veil over her face in a more traditional way. After the couple exchanged vows and were pronounced man and wife, the groom lifted the bride's veil for their first kiss as husband and wife. During this tender moment, an older gentleman in the church loudly said, 'Open fer biznuss!' It was very cringy."
—Suzette R.
12."The reception where I had to pay for my own food. Now, I'm fine with having a cash bar. We walked in and grabbed some beers, tossed some cash, and a nice tip. All was well. But when we went through the buffet line, and the guy at the end was asking for credit cards or cash…WTF?!..."
"...I went back to our seats and went through every invite or email about the wedding, and the cash reception was never mentioned anywhere. I'd call it being white trash, but I don't even think white trash would do something like this. I've been to some hillbilly weddings in my time. You might see a BYOB reception, but at least the food is always fantastic."
—The Economator
13."The most disrespectful thing I've seen someone do at a wedding was to get so drunk that they threw up on the bride's dress. True story. It was one of the bridesmaids. She was dancing late in the evening, and she had been drinking for most of the night. I guess there had been some twirling going on, and the next thing you know, she's hurling all over the bride and her dress..."
"...The only redeeming factor is that the puke was on the back of the dress toward the bottom, and we managed to hustle the bride into the washroom to clean it off. The dress was damaged, but the bride was able to keep partying until she and the groom left. As for the bridesmaid, well…someone got her cleaned up and took her up to her room, someone else cleaned up the dance floor, and the night went on, but I thought it was a horrible thing to do, to get that drunk."
—Pamela J.
14."When the groom fully pushed the bride's face into the cake, not only getting cake and frosting around her mouth but also on her entire face, hair, and even her wedding dress. The guests were stunned, and the bride broke into tears. I knew from what I'd seen and how he treated her (on her wedding day, no less) that they'd end up divorced. And yep, they later divorced as expected."
—Paula
15."We got married at a location two hours from home. My husband and I went a couple of days before the wedding to prepare and relax. His grown daughter was bringing his mother the day before the wedding. But his mother was furious that we didn't take her with us..."
"...I booked several rooms for family and had them in specific locations in the hotel and grouped for various purposes. When I met the first group at the hotel the day before the wedding, I learned that my mother-in-law had called and rearranged all of the rooms. During the wedding, my mother-in-law (in the front row) turned to the person next to her and said, 'Wonder how long this will last.' During the reception, she complained so much about a lack of attention that my husband had to threaten to have someone take her back to the hotel. The first morning of our honeymoon, my husband slept in, and my mother-in-law called his phone 20 times by noon."
—Ginger R.
16."About 30 years ago, I was the plus-one on a wedding invitation. The guests were all seated in church, the couple was at the altar, and the minister was working his way through the ceremony. At the point where he said, 'If any person present knows of any legal impediment why this couple should not be married, speak now or forever hold your peace.' The bride spoke up..."
"She asked the minister if she could address the congregation, and he replied that it was unusual, but she had every right. So she turned to the guests and started what I can only describe as a best man's speech or father-of-the-bride speech at the reception. She thanked various aunts and cousins for the flowers, dresses, etc. She thanked relatives that had flown in from Australia, and so on. It was all a bit awkward and uncomfortable, not to mention odd. Finally, she turned to her chief bridesmaid and groom and said, 'Lastly, I would like to thank my chief bridesmaid and groom…' both of whom smiled, '...for sleeping together last weekend after his stag night and my hen night. And for those that don't believe it, here's the videotape.' She marched out of the church, handing the tape to the groom's mother."
—David B.
17."The bride did not show up. The guests were at the church, along with the bride's and groom's families. The bridesmaids were missing, but the groom and the groom's men were waiting. We all waited. For one and a half hours. Finally, the maid of honor showed up and announced that the bride had decided she was not getting married. Apparently, she used the airplane tickets for the honeymoon to elope with someone else. We all left the church somewhat rattled and felt very bad for the groom. However, that was only the bride's first wedding. Almost 40 years later, she is on to husband number six. I did not attend any of the other subsequent, (elaborate) weddings."
—Sharon B.
What is the most uncomfortable, inappropriate, tacky, or straight-up horrific wedding moment you have witnessed? Tell us in the comments or in this anonymous form.
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In 1969, when my mom was an infant, her mother, Amanda, disappeared one day and was never heard from again. "I spent my entire childhood wondering what happened to her," my mom, Zoyda, explained to me in Spanish. My mom and her sister, Juana, grew up without the love of a mother. As children, they would fantasize and imagine what Amanda was like, crying themselves to sleep every night wondering why she was gone. The family never found an answer, but many theories about Amanda's whereabouts emerged in their small town of Ensenada, a port city in the coastal Mexican state of Baja California. "Some people said she ran away with a lover, an army guy," my mom told me. "Others said she must have been killed and that's why she never came back for us, because who would abandon and leave two little girls behind like that?" That theory seemed the most plausible to me. I spent the majority of my life believing that my grandmother, or abuela, was dead. 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Strangely, the results linked me to the state of Sonora: a place my mom has neither visited nor knew she had any family from. I was also matched with a person named Bernie (his real name withheld for privacy purposes), whom Ancestry determined was my first cousin on my mom's side — our DNA had a match of "667 cM across 21 segments." I didn't know what that meant, but I messaged this mysterious match to see if he could provide me with any intel about our connection. "Hi Bernie, are we related?" I asked while revealing my mom's name. Bernie said he didn't know her. I then mentioned the full names of my mom's parents and asked, "Do either of those names sound familiar?" "Omg," he wrote. After some back and forth, Bernie revealed that Amanda was his grandmother, and she was happily living in Arizona as the matriarch of her extended family. Read more: Faulty DNA test kits were used in thousands of L.A. County criminal cases, authorities say I was in shock. Could my grandmother, who I believed had been dead for more than 50 years, really still be alive? Bernie asked if we could FaceTime. Minutes later, I nervously dialed his number. My hands were shaking, and my heartbeat was racing. "You look exactly like my Nana," Bernie said to me during our call. Bernie was friendly and animated throughout our entire conversation. He said he lived in Tucson and was really close to Amanda. Because of their close relationship, he was eager to get to the bottom of his grandmother's sordid past. "In our family, we know there is a period of a few years where my grandma left Sonora, but no one knows where she lived or what she did during that time. She doesn't talk about it, and it's a mystery in our family," Bernie told me. "What is Amanda like?" I asked. "My grandma is a huge family person," he said. "Family is number one to her, there's nothing she wouldn't do for us." The words stung. How could this be the same person who abandoned her two daughters in Ensenada and never looked back? I didn't say anything and continued to listen as he revealed that despite a traumatic childhood in Sonora, Amanda went on to achieve the American dream in Arizona. She ran a successful daycare for kids, got her college degree in something related to child development, and was beloved by her community as an advocate for women and children. Everything that Bernie shared with me seemed to be disconnected from the reality of what Amanda did to my mom and her sister. I asked how he could help facilitate a meeting between Amanda and her daughters to reunite them. "They've been waiting their entire lives to meet their mother," I said. "My Nana suffers from high blood pressure," he said. "I want to do this in a way that won't stress her out or make her condition worse, but I do want to confront her and get to the bottom of this." We spoke for more than two hours in what seemed like a positive and productive conversation, and he excitedly told me he would ultimately strategize the best way to talk to his grandma. I called my mom immediately to tell her the news. "Mami, your mother is still alive, I just talked to her grandson, I found him on Ancestry," I nervously told her on the phone. My mom was in shock and silently listened as I filled her in on my discovery. I left out what Bernie said about Amanda being a loving matriarch to her large family — I didn't want my mom to feel hurt. "I doubt she will want to meet us," my mom said. "She's had a lifetime to look for us and she hasn't. She doesn't care about us, but I guess we'll see what Bernie can deliver." She wasn't relieved about the discovery of her mother's confirmed existence. She was hurt to find out that Amanda had been alive this entire time and had not returned for the two daughters who intensely missed a woman they never knew. It pained my mom to know that Amanda started fresh with a new life hundreds of miles away. In the days that followed this revelation, my mom's hopes unexpectedly emerged to the surface. She tried playing coy, but whenever we would talk on the phone she would casually ask, "So … any update from Bernie?" A few weeks passed and I hadn't heard back from him. I sent him a friendly text asking if he had talked to Amanda yet. "No update as of now … I haven't had the opportunity and still figuring out how to even bring it up," he wrote. Months went by without any communication from Bernie until I reached out again for an update. The next day, he responded to my text. "Hi," read the message. "I feel terrible for giving any hope on this to your mom/fam, I just honestly don't know if I can have that conversation with her. I'm not necessarily opposed to it, but the timing lately hasn't been the best. It is something I would like to do just no idea of when or how … but I'll definitely keep you posted!" I never heard from him again. "I knew he wasn't going to do anything," my mom said when I revealed what had happened — or rather, what hadn't. "And I knew there was no reason to get my hopes up. This was a waste of everyone's time." She began sobbing as she said this. Her hurt was loudly palpitating through the telephone, and I began to feel hurt too, not for myself, but for the little girl in my mom who was still crying for her mother's love all these years later. I tried my best to comfort her, but nothing I said could stop the flow of tears. "It was a waste of time," she said again. My mom may have thought that the entire experience with Bernie was a "waste," however, something else happened in the aftermath — my mom began opening up about her childhood to me, and I began asking more questions. I asked her what happened immediately after Amanda went missing. "What did her family do?" According to family lore, Amanda left her two young daughters with a babysitter, saying she would return later. When she never came back, the babysitter notified my mom's relatives, who were confused and alarmed by her disappearance. At the time, my mom lived with her 2-year-old sister Juana, their father, Jose, and Amanda. Jose was a fisherman who would be gone for months at a time; he was out at sea when Amanda went missing. Jose spiraled into alcoholism not long after. For most of my mom's life, he was an absent father who left Juana and my mom under the care of any distant relative willing to house them. My mom and her sister were severely neglected and forced to provide for themselves by working jobs as young children, often subjected to abuse by men who were supposed to look after them. They were failed by all the adults in their lives. Their father, Jose, died in 1987. I realized, after she told me this, that her childhood was very similar to Amanda's. "My grandma had a hard life, she was abandoned by her mom and forced to work as a kid to provide for her siblings," Bernie told me during our FaceTime call. "She was abused and assaulted by men she knew — it was very traumatic." My mom, of course, knew none of this growing up; but she inevitably inherited Amanda's generational trauma, and it made its way into my childhood too. But in learning more about my mom's abandonment, the trajectory of her life became clear to me. I understood the pain she endured her entire life. Even though it led to difficulties in my own upbringing, I felt more connected to her; and then I felt myself becoming more protective of her. Because of this trauma, my mom faced many personal struggles, including failed toxic relationships with men, especially with my father. But unlike Amanda, my mom never gave up on her family and never abandoned my two siblings and me. 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Los Angeles Times
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What a DNA test revealed about my long-lost abuela — and her secret life
In 1969, when my mom was an infant, her mother, Amanda, disappeared one day and was never heard from again. 'I spent my entire childhood wondering what happened to her,' my mom, Zoyda, explained to me in Spanish. My mom and her sister, Juana, grew up without the love of a mother. As children, they would fantasize and imagine what Amanda was like, crying themselves to sleep every night wondering why she was gone. The family never found an answer, but many theories about Amanda's whereabouts emerged in their small town of Ensenada, a port city in the coastal Mexican state of Baja California. 'Some people said she ran away with a lover, an army guy,' my mom told me. 'Others said she must have been killed and that's why she never came back for us, because who would abandon and leave two little girls behind like that?' That theory seemed the most plausible to me. I spent the majority of my life believing that my grandmother, or abuela, was dead. In Mexican culture, and most Latin American cultures, grandmothers are powerful matriarchal figures at the center of every family. They are the glue that holds households together. This archetype is well-represented in popular culture, in Disney films like 'Coco' and 'Encanto,' and in the modern-day reboot of the hit TV show 'One Day at a Time.' Beyond the big screen, Latina grandmothers are often the subject of cultural appreciation — in 2020, Syracuse University's La Casita Cultural Center installed an exhibit titled 'Abuelas,' and in 2023, NBC News anchor Tom Llamas did a segment celebrating abuelas for 'Today.' Even though the role of a grandmother has always been emphasized in my culture, not having a grandmother never bothered me or afflicted me. Yet as I got older, the journalist in me began to have questions about my roots and heritage on my maternal side. Curious to unravel this long-lost history, I bought an Ancestry DNA testing kit. Strangely, the results linked me to the state of Sonora: a place my mom has neither visited nor knew she had any family from. I was also matched with a person named Bernie (his real name withheld for privacy purposes), whom Ancestry determined was my first cousin on my mom's side — our DNA had a match of '667 cM across 21 segments.' I didn't know what that meant, but I messaged this mysterious match to see if he could provide me with any intel about our connection. 'Hi Bernie, are we related?' I asked while revealing my mom's name. Bernie said he didn't know her. I then mentioned the full names of my mom's parents and asked, 'Do either of those names sound familiar?' 'Omg,' he wrote. After some back and forth, Bernie revealed that Amanda was his grandmother, and she was happily living in Arizona as the matriarch of her extended family. I was in shock. Could my grandmother, who I believed had been dead for more than 50 years, really still be alive? Bernie asked if we could FaceTime. Minutes later, I nervously dialed his number. My hands were shaking, and my heartbeat was racing. 'You look exactly like my Nana,' Bernie said to me during our call. Bernie was friendly and animated throughout our entire conversation. He said he lived in Tucson and was really close to Amanda. Because of their close relationship, he was eager to get to the bottom of his grandmother's sordid past. 'In our family, we know there is a period of a few years where my grandma left Sonora, but no one knows where she lived or what she did during that time. She doesn't talk about it, and it's a mystery in our family,' Bernie told me. 'What is Amanda like?' I asked. 'My grandma is a huge family person,' he said. 'Family is number one to her, there's nothing she wouldn't do for us.' The words stung. How could this be the same person who abandoned her two daughters in Ensenada and never looked back? I didn't say anything and continued to listen as he revealed that despite a traumatic childhood in Sonora, Amanda went on to achieve the American dream in Arizona. She ran a successful daycare for kids, got her college degree in something related to child development, and was beloved by her community as an advocate for women and children. Everything that Bernie shared with me seemed to be disconnected from the reality of what Amanda did to my mom and her sister. I asked how he could help facilitate a meeting between Amanda and her daughters to reunite them. 'They've been waiting their entire lives to meet their mother,' I said. 'My Nana suffers from high blood pressure,' he said. 'I want to do this in a way that won't stress her out or make her condition worse, but I do want to confront her and get to the bottom of this.' We spoke for more than two hours in what seemed like a positive and productive conversation, and he excitedly told me he would ultimately strategize the best way to talk to his grandma. I called my mom immediately to tell her the news. 'Mami, your mother is still alive, I just talked to her grandson, I found him on Ancestry,' I nervously told her on the phone. My mom was in shock and silently listened as I filled her in on my discovery. I left out what Bernie said about Amanda being a loving matriarch to her large family — I didn't want my mom to feel hurt. 'I doubt she will want to meet us,' my mom said. 'She's had a lifetime to look for us and she hasn't. She doesn't care about us, but I guess we'll see what Bernie can deliver.' She wasn't relieved about the discovery of her mother's confirmed existence. She was hurt to find out that Amanda had been alive this entire time and had not returned for the two daughters who intensely missed a woman they never knew. It pained my mom to know that Amanda started fresh with a new life hundreds of miles away. In the days that followed this revelation, my mom's hopes unexpectedly emerged to the surface. She tried playing coy, but whenever we would talk on the phone she would casually ask, 'So … any update from Bernie?' A few weeks passed and I hadn't heard back from him. I sent him a friendly text asking if he had talked to Amanda yet. 'No update as of now … I haven't had the opportunity and still figuring out how to even bring it up,' he wrote. Months went by without any communication from Bernie until I reached out again for an update. The next day, he responded to my text. 'Hi,' read the message. 'I feel terrible for giving any hope on this to your mom/fam, I just honestly don't know if I can have that conversation with her. I'm not necessarily opposed to it, but the timing lately hasn't been the best. It is something I would like to do just no idea of when or how … but I'll definitely keep you posted!' I never heard from him again. 'I knew he wasn't going to do anything,' my mom said when I revealed what had happened — or rather, what hadn't. 'And I knew there was no reason to get my hopes up. This was a waste of everyone's time.' She began sobbing as she said this. Her hurt was loudly palpitating through the telephone, and I began to feel hurt too, not for myself, but for the little girl in my mom who was still crying for her mother's love all these years later. I tried my best to comfort her, but nothing I said could stop the flow of tears. 'It was a waste of time,' she said again. My mom may have thought that the entire experience with Bernie was a 'waste,' however, something else happened in the aftermath — my mom began opening up about her childhood to me, and I began asking more questions. I asked her what happened immediately after Amanda went missing. 'What did her family do?' According to family lore, Amanda left her two young daughters with a babysitter, saying she would return later. When she never came back, the babysitter notified my mom's relatives, who were confused and alarmed by her disappearance. At the time, my mom lived with her 2-year-old sister Juana, their father, Jose, and Amanda. Jose was a fisherman who would be gone for months at a time; he was out at sea when Amanda went missing. Jose spiraled into alcoholism not long after. For most of my mom's life, he was an absent father who left Juana and my mom under the care of any distant relative willing to house them. My mom and her sister were severely neglected and forced to provide for themselves by working jobs as young children, often subjected to abuse by men who were supposed to look after them. They were failed by all the adults in their lives. Their father, Jose, died in 1987. I realized, after she told me this, that her childhood was very similar to Amanda's. 'My grandma had a hard life, she was abandoned by her mom and forced to work as a kid to provide for her siblings,' Bernie told me during our FaceTime call. 'She was abused and assaulted by men she knew — it was very traumatic.' My mom, of course, knew none of this growing up; but she inevitably inherited Amanda's generational trauma, and it made its way into my childhood too. But in learning more about my mom's abandonment, the trajectory of her life became clear to me. I understood the pain she endured her entire life. Even though it led to difficulties in my own upbringing, I felt more connected to her; and then I felt myself becoming more protective of her. Because of this trauma, my mom faced many personal struggles, including failed toxic relationships with men, especially with my father. But unlike Amanda, my mom never gave up on her family and never abandoned my two siblings and me. She tried her best to overcome the challenges and move forward, even if she made mistakes along the way. And my mom is still persevering now, even if it's without the love of a mother who left everything behind and never looked back. 'Everything about Amanda hurts, but what will I do?' My mom told me recently. '[I] continue to move forward. It's all I can do.'