hello, dear friend!
I´m Kayna
I am a wife, a mom, a daughter of God — and a daughter without parents.
That last part is still new to me.
Within nine months, I lost both my Mama and my Papa. I was thousands of miles from home, pregnant with my second child, with a toddler on my hip and a grief I did not know how to carry.
In the middle of all of it, I found my way back to God. Not the safe, distant version of faith I had kept for twenty years. The real kind. The kind you find when everything else has been taken and He is the only thing left standing.
This blog is what came out of that season.
My Story
a time to mourn and a time to dance
The past few years have been the most beautiful and the most breaking of my life.
In 2022, I married the love of my life and my rock, Peter.
In 2023, we welcomed Eevee — our firstborn, the child we had prayed for.
In 2024, I lost my Mama. She went in for open heart surgery and never came back out. And I remember thinking — it was not her heart that was opened. It was mine. And it has been bleeding ever since.
In 2025, I lost my Papa. My brother found him at home, already gone, looking like he was simply sleeping. Peaceful. Just gone.
Also in 2025, our son Emman was born — and my parents never got to meet him.
I am still learning how to hold all of that at once — the grief and the gratitude, the loss and the new life, the ache of missing them and the joy of raising children they prayed for.
Some days I do it with grace. Some days I cry myself to sleep. Most days I do it with coffee and a prayer that asks God to carry me through the season I am still learning to walk in.
“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.”
(Lamentations 3:22-23)
If you found this place,
I think you might be carrying something heavy too.
Maybe you lost someone you cannot stop reaching for. Maybe you became a mother and lost yourself at the same time. Maybe you have believed in God your whole life but never truly needed Him — until now.
I am not here to tell you it gets easier on a schedule. I am not here to hand you five steps and a scripture verse and send you on your way.
I am here to sit beside you and say — me too. I am here to show you that a life can be broken and beautiful at the same time. And that God does not wait until you have it together to show up for you.
A little bit more
about me
My Roots
I grew up in Baguio City in the Philippines — the City of Pines, where it is cold and quiet and life is slower and more simple. I was a chemical engineer before I became a stay-at-home mom. I lived in Manila and Japan before I ended up in California, which still surprises me some mornings.
My Hobbies
I play and teach piano to children on some afternoons.
I pour candles by hand — it started as grief and became something I love.
I like crafts like cross-stitching — my Mama taught me how to sew since I was a little girl.
I am learning to read my Bible the way I should have read it twenty years ago, when someone first put it in my hands.
My Family
My husband Peter serves in the military. He is steady and kind and the reason I am not alone in this season. Together we have a wild and wonderful toddler daughter, Eevee, a brand-new baby boy, Emman, and an 11-year-old gentle giant named Snoopy who has been with us through our life’s ups and downs.
