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An Estranged Mother's Day

kaleidoscopegirlMay 9, 2019, 6:03:53 AM
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Dear Kaleidoscope Children,

Happy Mother's Day Back! You're the only two people in the world that I don't want to slap in the face for saying that to me.  The judge says that I can't really talk to you about why I left, that that's contempt, and I guess that two first graders wouldn't understand anyways, so he might know what he's talking about.  I'm sorry that we'll never be together on Mother's Day, and I'm sorry we'll never spend a birthday together again.  

In case you were ever wondering, some moms have to leave, some just don't get an option.  It's not fair, it's not just, and it's definitely not the best thing for you.  I can't say I regret the decision I made, but someday I hope I can tell you about it and that someone reading about our experience might help them.

        Love,

                Mom


Today my fiance and I transferred the title of our tiny house over to our name.  It should have been a really happy moment in our lives, but, I guess that wasn't in the divine plan.

Yesterday, I had decided to do something that's been long past,  call a lawyer to see about revising my custody agreement to not include bits and pieces from another case that my lawyer was managing at the time because she was a terrible lawyer, and other, more personalized changes, and at the moment I'm calling the agency helping me with that, a meter maid is putting a ticket on my car for expired tags outside.

Although work had to be gotten to yesterday, the decision was made to go to the DMV today, and not to change over our trailer title while we were at it.  Which would have been fine, honestly, I wasn't too upset about the ticket.

However, my mental state had other plans because Sunday is Mother's Day, and Monday is my son's birthday, and he's with his dad in South Carolina, just like he is every single birthday.

Because I'm mom, the reason is plain and simple, and I get to take all the blame, it's because what is now four years ago, I left.  I was court ordered to leave my babies with my ex-husband and rather than going to jail over it or living in a homeless shelter or worse, on the streets, I moved back home to Chez Mom.

I guess the right place to start this story would be the night I told my husband I was leaving. He probably barely remembers it because it wasn’t the first time I had told him that I wanted to go home, but he didn’t want to leave, he loved his life just how it was.

Who could have blamed him? Between my job and going to school, we were raking in the dough, and he didn’t have to lift a finger except to feed the kids, which, at the time my daughter was 4 and my son was just about to turn 3. Sure he had lots of ideas about the ways he would make a living. In fact, we had invested thousands upon thousands into useless projects and inventions that he was going to use to make money, but instead, it turned into a bunch of half done projects, and sometimes, just raw materials laying around the house.

Indeed! I was working 80 hour weeks and coming home to toddler filth mixed with his “projects” overflowing off of every single table. I would walk into the kitchen, wash a single plate from the pile of dishes the sink was overflowing with and grab whatever pre-made meal could be put into the oven on 450 for 20 minutes and be hot…. hours ago when he fed the kids.

It was on a night like that, when my daughter allowed me to look at the bottom of her foot and I saw huge, festering slivers and I asked my husband for help with the struggle toddler, and his response was to pick her up by one foot, hold her upside down, and jab her foot with the tweezers seemingly without aim that I finally lost it, and I told him that I was moving home, and that if he wouldn’t help me, I would find a way without him.

That way was named Thomas Hodge, who may be the only functional person in this world who is more wounded than me. He came from coal mining folks, in and out of foster care in the poor of West Virginia, and the chance to start over with a pretty girl in a place like Oregon was his way out too. Since I was leaving my husband, we hooked up, and he payed well, more than half of the way.

In all honesty, it was really just a fantasy until my step-father committed suicide, then I knew I had to get home to my mother.

I told my husband I was leaving, and I started making plans. My mother and uncle were going to come help pack up the kids and me in two month’s time, and we were moving to Oregon

I wanted to do what was right, so I kept my ex-husband informed on the plan, our new address, which I arrange ahead of time, my new job, I paid the rent and the bills through the end of the month, put in my notice, and quit my job.

We were loading the U-Haul when a woman came and dropped papers off with Tom saying that a judge said I couldn’t leave the state with my children, and that I couldn’t go home either. I had no other option but to follow the plan.

My ex-husband, sadistically enjoying his new power, made it difficult, but not impossible to have the kids for the last night in a hotel. I remember sitting with my son, who I was begging to go to sleep because we were all so tired, and I personally had not slept in over 24 hours, and then it was morning. We went down for breakfast, stayed to the very last second we could before check out, and then headed to the park where we agreed to meet my ex-husband.

We mine as well have been all headed to our execution that day, and in a way, we were. We saw my ex-husband at the park, and let the kids go play with one of his friends while we exchanged car seats and such. He had decided to walk because he didn’t want me to steal the car, so he was carrying all of the kids’ everything home with him.

After a few short words and the kids playing for a little while, my son fell and hurt himself just as I was about to fade out, so I couldn’t help it, I ran over and picked him up and looked at his boo boo, and was a mom. Unfortunately, that alerted my daughter I was leaving and since no one told her that she wasn’t coming yet, when before we had told her she was, she ran over and put herself in my lap with my son and started crying. We all sat there for a while, holding each other, crying. At one point, someone took my son out of my arms so I could hug my daughter better.

“I need the keys to the car.” My ex-husband said. I looked up at him bleary eyed, I didn’t even know where the keys to his stupid car was at the moment because I was driving an empty u-haul that we had rented to drag all the kid’s stuff as neither of us had much.

My mother lost it, she put herself between him and I and started screaming, but me and my daughter barely noticed. At this point, it was time for us to go, we had already stayed as late as we could. My daughter ran after us as we walked back to the vehicles until my ex-husband caught her. She was screaming “Nooo!!!!” Over and over at the top of her lungs. The last thing I saw before I looked away was her reaching out with one hand as her dad was pulling her back with the other, terrified that I was leaving. Then I got in the car and someone started driving.

That is the worst moment of my life, and at the slightest provocation it all comes flying back in like I’m still there. It’s as if this is a moment that is in the past, but it’s also my present, it’s my future, it’s my whole life. Although I have a few memories like this one, none of them are even near as real and when it starts, it’s almost like a record, playing the whole thing out, over and over again, getting stuck on the worst parts and skipping backwards like a broken record until something snaps me out of it, and that’s how I know, 

I’ve officially gone insane.

Tom and me, we didn’t last very long once we got out here, and I can't say I shed many tears over that, honestly, I'm sure he didn't either. My ex-husband lives with his mom in South Carolina, and I live with mine here in Oregon. I see my kids in the summer. I always say that I could deal with it better if they were here more, but I don’t really know if that’s true. Sometimes I say that if I had another baby, a chance to have the "mother" experience, that would make me better.


I hope your mom didn't leave you, but if she did, she'll never forget you.  Hope you enjoy your festivities this weekend if you aren't an absentee mom, well, then *air toast* and bottoms up, and see you on Tuesday.