Chosen to Live: The Power of Choices

Life is a series of choices. Some choices are exciting. Some are life changing. Others are made with tears streaming down our faces, wondering how we will survive another day. We don’t always get to choose what happens to us, but we do get to choose how we respond. I’ve learned that one choice doesn’t change your life. A lifetime of choices does.

After losing my mom in 2013, I thought I understood grief. I thought I knew what it meant to rebuild a life after unimaginable loss. I learned how to smile while carrying an ache that never truly disappeared. I learned how to keep showing up even when my heart was broken. Over time, I found a way to live again, believing I had experienced the deepest pain a heart could endure.

Then, here goes 2025! 5 months into the year I lost my daughter.

Nothing could have prepared me for burying my child. The grief of losing my mother was profound, but the grief of losing Jahmya shattered me in ways I never knew were possible. It felt as though every wound I had worked so hard to heal was ripped wide open again. I wasn’t only grieving my daughter. I was grieving the future I imagined for her, the milestones she would never reach, the memories we would never make, and the version of myself that existed before she took her last breath.

As if that wasn’t enough, the same week we were planning Jahmya’s home going a year later my husband loses his mother. Just when we were trying to find our footing after losing our daughter, another wave of grief crashed into our family. Once again, death visited our home. I watched the man I love grieve the loss of his mother while we were both still learning how to survive the loss of our child. Our family wasn’t just carrying one grief, we were carrying generations of it, even while still Parenting our two living children.

After losing my mom, four years into my relationship, then my daughter twelve years after my mom and watching my husband lose his mother within a year, I found myself standing at another crossroads. Life handed me choices. I could choose to allow grief to define the rest of my life, or I could choose to let God redeem it. I could choose bitterness, or I could choose forgiveness. I could choose isolation, or I could choose community. I could choose to walk away from my marriage, or I could choose to fight for it. I could choose to hide behind my pain, or I could choose to become a beacon of hope for others. I could choose to simply survive, or I could choose to truly live.

I chose to live.

That wasn’t a one-time decision. It is a choice I continue to make every single day. Every morning, I choose to get out of bed when every part of me wants to stay beneath the covers. I choose to go to work even when my heart feels heavy because I know purpose still exists in the middle of pain. I choose to pray even when my prayers feel unanswered. I choose therapy. I choose community. I choose faith, even when my faith feels no bigger than a mustard seed.

Choosing my marriage was one of the most intentional decisions I’ve ever made. It wasn’t because we have two living children together. It was because we made a covenant. We promised to love one another through better or worse, in joy and in sorrow. I knew that if our marriage was going to have a future, I wanted to know we had both given it everything we had, not because grief convinced us to walk away.

My husband and I were grieving the same daughter, but we were grieving in completely different ways. We misunderstood one another. We struggled to communicate. There were moments when silence filled our home more than words, and seasons before she transitioned when we both felt lost in our own pain.

Then I realized something. Grief had already taken enough from us. It had taken our daughter, our peace, our sense of normalcy, and so much of the life we once knew. I refused to let it take my marriage too. So I made a choice. I chose to stay. I chose grace over resentment. I chose forgiveness over bitterness. I chose to keep showing up, believing that although grief had changed us, it didn’t have to define the future of what God had joined together.

I chose to fight with my husband instead of against him. I chose to LOVE a man whose heart was just as broken as mine. Most importantly, I chose forgiveness.

Forgiveness wasn’t pretending the hurt didn’t exist before our grief and during our grief. It wasn’t ignoring the words spoken from pain or the silence that sometimes hurt even more. Forgiveness was refusing to let bitterness build a home in my heart. It meant extending grace while we both learned how to navigate a life neither of us wanted. It meant forgiving myself for the guilt I carried as a mother, guilt that constantly whispered I should have done more even though I gave my daughter everything I had. It even meant choosing to trust God with the questions that may never be answered this side of heaven. Forgiveness didn’t erase my pain, but it freed me from becoming imprisoned by it.

As “healing” slowly finds its way into the broken places of my heart, God placed another choice before me. I could hide, or I could help. I chose to become a beacon of hope. Not because I have it all together. Not because I don’t still cry. Not because grief no longer visits my home. But because I know what it feels like to desperately search for someone who understands.

Today, every blog I write is a choice. Every grieving mother I embrace is a choice. Every family the Uniqly Made Foundation serves is a choice. Every UniqWarrior Cape we deliver, every gathering through the UniqGrief Garden, every prayer we pray, and every conversation that reminds someone they are not alone is a choice. They are choices to let my pain become purpose instead of allowing it to become my prison.

People often tell me I’m strong, but strength isn’t the absence of pain. Strength is choosing to keep going while carrying pain that never completely leaves. I still cry. I still have days that knock the wind out of me. I still miss my mom. I still long to hear Jahmya call me “Mommy.” I still watch my husband carry the weight of losing his mother. The grief hasn’t disappeared, but neither has God.

The Bible is filled with people whose lives were changed because of choices. Noah chose obedience and saved generations. Esther chose courage and saved a nation. Ruth chose loyalty and found redemption. Mary chose surrender and carried the Savior. Jesus chose the cross so that we could choose eternal life. Never underestimate what God can do through surrendered choices.

Maybe your choice today won’t make headlines. Maybe your choice is getting out of bed. Taking your medication. Going to counseling. Apologizing. Forgiving someone. Forgiving yourself. Opening your Bible. Answering the phone. Whispering, “God, help me.” Those choices matter because healing rarely happens through one miraculous moment. It happens through thousands of faithful choices.

Today, I choose to honor Jahmya’s legacy. I choose to love my husband intentionally. I choose forgiveness. I choose faith. I choose purpose. I choose to serve. I choose to encourage. I choose to be a light for someone walking through darkness. Above all, I choose to live.

My story did not end when I buried my mother. It did not end in a hospital room. It did not end at my daughter’s gravesite. It did not end when grief nearly consumed my marriage. It did not end when my husband loss his mother. It did not end with unanswered prayers. It did not end with heartbreak because God is still writing my story.

And if you’re reading this today, He’s still writing yours.

You may not get to choose every circumstance life places before you, but you can choose your response. Choose grace. Choose forgiveness. Choose faith. Choose your family. Choose purpose. Choose hope. And every day God gives you breath, choose to live.

“I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live.” — Deuteronomy 30:19

With love and hope,

Jamara Brooks-Parmer 💙🦋🌻