Dear Becca:

It is laudable that you wish to make a proper reparations for your sin. The practicalities of doing so, however, do not always allow for a direct course.

If it is too difficult to speak to your parents face-to-face or on the telephone, or if they would not receive your apology very well if you spoke directly to them, you can try writing them a letter.

If you write a letter you can say what you need to say, they can read it, and then, if that is the family style of doing things, it can never be mentioned again -- no words must be said to each other about the apology or about the letter. The matter is then over.

There are cases when reparations to the person are not possible at all for whatever reasons. In such cases, one can offer reparations in another way. For example, if one sinned by stealing something and direct reparations cannot be prudently made, then one could offer reparations by taking the item stolen and giving it to a person in need, or taking twice the dollar value of the item and giving the money to the poor.

If one's sin was uncharity and reparations cannot be made to the person himself, then one could offer reparations by being charitable to a person, or several persons, you do not wish to be charitable to.

Those are just examples, but hopefully the readers can get the idea.

In your case specifically, if you are not able to speak to your parents about this directly, try writing a letter. If even a letter is not possible, then you may have to resort to something like that in my examples above.

God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary