One of the hardest things for me for a while was
being around my own children. They were constant reminders that I had failed
them. Because of my mistakes, and those of their father, they would have to
suffer through having a broken family. They would have to endure shared
parenting, split holidays, and ruffled emotions as they transitioned from one
house to the other. They may someday have to make two Mother’s Day or Father’s
Day gifts in school because we had each moved on. I was embarrassed for them. I
didn’t want them to ever have to explain these awkward things to their
teachers, or worse, their friends. I
once told my own mother, after months of acting somewhat unattached to my sons,
that it hurt me to look at them. I saw everything that was supposed to be that
never would be.
They knew I was hurting. I will never, ever, forget
the wisdom of my young boys that I received at that time. For a short time before
he left, I wore a heart-shaped locket with pictures of my boys on one side and
of us on the other. My younger son, only 2 ½ then, commented when I took it
off. “Mommy doesn’t have her heart
anymore, because it is broken.” I remember clearly a conversation with my
older son (5 then). “Mom, you just need a
knight in shining armor to come for you,” he said, “but I am not sure they exist.” When I began dating again, and
found a man I cared about enough to introduce to them, my eldest asked me
simply, “Does he make you smile, Mom?” During
these months after the divorce was final, I tried to never speak badly about
their father. I knew he loved them, and that we would need to work together to
parent them even if we were no longer a couple.
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