[From an article about the author's trans daughter, who moved in with an affirming family at 18]

Over the next couple of months, we learned that this family had relocated to another city. Our son was now sharing a room with their son and had plans to go to a budget college in state that they had helped him to apply for, including filling out the FAFSA. He didn't have his car or cell phone, and he was only communicating with his brother and friends. We also learned that these friends were more aware of the situation than we knew and that the family we saw as friends (we had helped them financially, with rides from school, with yard work just weeks before they sold their home), had been grooming Jake for almost a year. Both of their children were "different", their daughter even wanted to be a cat. I remember feeling so violated, so sick to my stomach, that two self-proclaimed "Christian" people would find their actions not only acceptable but laudable. I know what hate really is now. I don't know why God allowed this.

[...]

I haven't been well in a long time. I saw my doctor and got medicine. It doesn’t seem to help but, hey, I lost 20 pounds. I will admit that I think about just being done with life. I'm honestly tired. My husband and daughter want me to let him go. My son says he tells Jake that I love him, but he won’t let me speak directly to Jake or meet up with them if Jake happens to be in town. Nothing changes and the little boy in the pictures on my walls and on my phone keeps smiling. And a piece of me dies each day.