...4 (in days gone by)...

In Days Gone By:
12. September.2021

Some among you here reading know the story, in bits and pieces.

Some of you have walked through chapters of it with us.

Others of you know only the result of the early years of our family...know only the team of two that rebuilt atop the ashes of a violent, crushing past.

But all of you today, reading this, can celebrate in your own way as today we step into our freedom...finally!

Today everything new begins.

Yesterday, everything old finally ended. Ended...

was obliterated...

was erased...

was disowned...

was disavowed.

Yesterday, the young man I am so proud to call my son was able to confront the man who came so close to destroying us both and not only put voice to the long-silent emotions of what he endured, but also firmly say "No more!".

Yesterday, Johannes...18 and every inch the young man who has risen so far beyond every challenge he's been presented with, made the decision for us both and for his loved ones...his grandmother and his half-siblings...and, having finally "had his say", permanently excised the excruciating weight that has been his 'deadbeat dad' from our life. Having the opportunity to finally say whatever he wanted, he proved himself the far better man, exercising restraint. Instead of lashing out, he was clear and precise. A declaration of strength...an acknowledgement of the hurt and shame he had felt...a strongly worded demand that he never be contacted again...and that Christian stop using him and his siblings to drum up pity and charity.

(As I have said before, there are some words that exist only for those moments of intense emotion...and, in my opinion, while inappropriate in regular conversation, are the only way to fully communicate absolute rage and disgust.)

His words were forceful...his language carefully chosen to exact the result he wanted. And in the end, after demanding his due, Johannes had the final word.

Some 16+ years after first filing for a restraining order, we are both finally able to walk away cleanly...never again having to acknowledge this wretched creature, or feel dragged down by the burden of his chaos and sickness and threats.

As I typed so joyfully but a few years ago, "they are all safe"...and now it is even more true.

My stepchildren are flourishing in a stable, safe and secure home...surrounded by a family that has chosen to come together to raise them up in love and support. We have built solid bridges to one another. Johannes has safely reached the age of majority...the threat of custody or visitation no longer keeps me from exhaling.

The threat has dissolved into yesterday.

Last night I sat with my eldest son and we breathed in the relief denied to us these many years. We felt our shoulders relax and our senses mute a bit from what had become an all too familiar alert to impending doom. We spoke freely...the words and emotions pouring out...and then let them melt away, with no need to take it all back up again.

I told him, laughingly but earnestly, "You are my hero.", and how I admired his ability to strongly and eloquently say the things that needed to be said. I told him that what I had wanted for him all those years ago, was finally his. Freedom. The ability to walk away. The time to be done carrying the shame of having had Christian for a father (a word Johannes never allowed, but the biological relationship nonetheless) and disavow any tie. Here...now...it was his. It was mine.

Johannes answered back, "I am my mother's son."

And so he is.

But he is so much more. He is who he has chosen to be...he is the product of his own choices: to rise above, to be empathetic, to love. He is the product of bearing witness to what Christian has done and choosing to do the opposite every time. He is my hero.

Yesterday, we cleaned house. We settled our accounts in a way.

Particularly me.

Typing into my final text that I didn't even mind the wasted time~money~energy~etc...because it served as proof to me of my having done all that I could.

Knowing my words wouldn't cut through the haze of drugs and lies and ego, and knowing also that it no longer mattered to me whether or not they did.

I have done all I could.

I have sacrificed all I am willing to.

I am settled.

I am at peace.

Yesterday, we washed our hands. We stopped the infection that is his disgusting life, from spreading any further into ours. We dreamt up the 'what ifs and whens' of moving forward. We marveled at the fact that sweet Henri will never have to know our pain and stress over that man. We cleansed ourselves of all the insidious thoughts and feelings that inviting his damage in had created.

Yesterday, we cut off the rot.

Today, we celebrate.

Today, we are our own.

Today, I am mother to two remarkable boys I've given birth to and step-mother to two equally remarkable children who have grown in my heart.

I am not the ex-wife...

the estranged spouse..

the maligned...

the abused...

the terrified...

the victim.

I am not broken.

I am not even the survivor.

Today I am what I chose all those years ago when I finally got up the courage to save us.

I am one who overcame.

And today? Today Johannes is MY son...100%. Belonging to no one but himself. Worthy and loved and wholly his own man. He is who he chooses to be. He never needs to feel the burden of Christian again. He is safe.

Today, we celebrate. We eat cake...literally...because if ever there was a moment to savor and laugh through and feast over, it is this. We'll sit around the table, our cobbled together family of four, and revel in the lightheartedness. We'll make plans, and tell stories, and crack jokes. We'll make a mess and clean it up.

And in the months to come, I'll set aside the money to hire the lawyer and the process server and pay the fees. I'll come to terms with my own irritation at, having already carried the financial burden all these years, I've to do it one final time. I'll justify it, in time, as the greatest gift I've ever given myself.

We are finally able to turn our backs completely on the monster.

Free.

12. September. 2021

...2 (in days gone by)...

 In Days Gone By:
25.October.2018

The house is quiet.

Warm, and quiet.

Quiet enough that the infernal hum of the refrigerator sounds like a drill inside my skull.

He's home today, downed by a fever and head-cold symptoms. We slept in, miraculously, and I feel wholly refreshed. Sitting across from me here at the table, he has the dark circles and flushed cheeks of his fever and the furrowed brow of his concentration as he works on his engineering homework.

(Yup...That Mom, too. Home sick? Homework. Unless you're comatose!)

We took the morning "off"...sleeping in led to the laziest of breakfasts, still in pjs. Copious amounts of coffee and tea extended our table-sit while we chatted our way round how he was feeling, what was going on in school, etc...

I sat there, engaging in the conversation with most of my brain, while a small portion of it pecked away at the dissonance of what continues to unfold re:my stepchildren.

It's hard. Difficult. Impossible even, to wrap my head around the reality of their experience with their father...and remember how very close we came to being permanently scarred in those same ways.

He is light. Seated across from me. Looking up every few moments to reassure himself of my presence...of my attention. He is light and carefree in the stability-the solidity-the expected. But his half-siblings know nothing of those feelings.

In my head, I liken them to feral cats. All the potential, but none of the rearing...the raising. Acting solely on self-serving instinct, consequences be damned. It is, to me, horrifying to hear each piece, each drip drop drip of information that seeps out of the crumbling walls their father tried to erect around them. It is, to me, horrifying that this man is the primary caregiver-so ill-equipped for the job. So ill-equipped for his own life.

I always say how lucky I am that he is mine. That this glorious, brilliant, challenging young man is mine to raise and be raised up by. Mine to be the plus-one for. Mine to observe and record and be amazed by. But in that part of my brain that's worrying on that dissonance, I know it's not luck at all. He's become what he was meant to be because I did what was needed, no matter the cost...no matter the struggle...no matter the naysayers.

I wonder, often, if it's already too late for those two. If the path has already been set in concrete for them. Or if, perhaps, all the moves we players on the periphery are making....all the barriers and walls we are erecting and pushing in all around them will be enough to spin them off that axis and give them their best chance as well.

He's had the best chance or, at the very least, the best chance I could provide. And he's done wonders with it. Creating from these small pieces a world in which he creates...dominates...advocates...leads...inspires change. I am never not awestruck at where this life has taken us.

But I wonder, day in and day out, if it's too little-too late for those two. And I wonder what that will mean for him. Will he be dragged down by their dysfunction when they are all older? Will he inherit my 'need to rescue-need to help-need to fix' and find himself breaking himself into pieces trying to fill the holes in them?

Will he, as he's doing now, try to line up all the angles and make the picture symmetrical? Will he pour himself out into them?

Oh, I worry.

I worry about him. Of course I do. I worry for him...for who he will have to be when I am gone. For how he will move on from being part of a team of two to being just one.

I worry for them, these children I have chosen to love from afar. I worry for their chances and their outcomes and their day right now.

I worry for their father and his instability...worry that his emotional dysfunction will win out and he will lose himself, his life.

The house is quiet as we both sit here, he at his homework and I at this emptying out of the words in my head. It is quiet and calm and warm and peaceful and I am torn between the tranquility of our life and the chaos of theirs.

...from there to here, and why to 'do the good'...

Usually, I write things here and then post them to social media.
It's a system that works.

But on occasion, I find that I have written something there that needs to go here...or, that needs to come here to be worked on...written in...fleshed out...

This is one of those things:

(and it comes with this caveat: My estranged husband read this piece , as posted to social media and prior to some minor edits I am making in the current iteration, and disagreed vigorously with my word choice and my portrayal of his childrens' needs and experiences.  I allowed him the opportunity to present evidence to the contrary, and reminded him that these words of mine were given substance by his descriptions and his revelations.  He is not quoted  verbatim at any point in this piece.)
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This may be long, and you may not like it.

You may not agree with what I say or how I say it.

You may not like that I am so brash in sharing my own experience.

You may not like the way it makes you feel.

You may not ever look at me the same way, or read my words without reading this experience into them.

But please afford me the courtesy of reading it through anyway...and watch the accompanying video. Please allow your heart to be touched, just enough so that you raise your children to be empathetic. 

I have been broken.

I have been left.

I have scrambled to recover from violence and loss and pick up the pieces of a shattered life.

I have watched, helpless, as the man and marriage I believed in imploded and exploded...and eroded every bit of my foundation.

I have survived abuse in the barest sense...finding my way clear to the other side, but losing myself in the process.

I have raised a boy without a father.

I have stretched myself thin trying to make up for the empty spaces that were left behind.

I have worked 80 hour weeks only to see a negative balance in my account when my ex-husband drained the funds despite the multiple copies of my restraining order being on file at the bank. I have dissolved into tears when that meant my rent would be late and that I'd be on the hook for late fees.  I have shaken with rage when that meant I could not afford my son's therapy co-pay.

I have used foodstamps to feed my child. I have visited food pantries to subsidize my income, when I made too much to qualify but not enough to cover the bills and his therapies and still be able to fill his belly.

I have gone without.

Without breakfast and lunch and dinner for days, filling myself up on sugar water and praying I wouldn't faint at work.

I have used the same tea bag in my cup four times, dipping it in and pulling it out quickly to save some of that flavor for the next cup.

I have watered down a can of soup and made it stretch into four meals.

I have rationed our food and our medicine and our vitamins.

I have grabbed handfuls of ketchup packets and creamers and sugar packets when buying 1 single burger and stretched them into sustenance.

I have gratefully and with no pride left in me, accepted bags of groceries from a friend and felt I could not look her in the eye in my shame.

I have patched our clothing and our socks.

I have turned down invitations and closed the proverbial door to friendships, knowing I couldn't afford to sit with them in a coffee shop or restaurant, or spare the gas money to drive to their homes.

I have heated water on the stove so my son could bathe when I couldn't afford to keep the hot water heater running. I have tucked him into bed in layers and winter gloves and hats when I couldn't keep the heat on.

I have sent my son to school with lunches that meant I would not eat that day. 

I have been humbled and humiliated and desperate.

He?

He has had his lunchbag stolen from him. Thrown away.

He has had it grabbed from his 6 year old hands and kicked down the hallway.

He has had a student dump their drink, purposely, right into his food.

He has had another middleschooler throw garbage at his table and into his meal.

He has come home and told me I need to send more food in with him because his friend doesn't get enough to eat at lunch. He has asked me to send in the snacks his friends prefer because he likes to be able to share them. He has asked me to call his friend's parents and tell them to buy a better lunch plan because the 1 piece of pizza isn't enough to fill a teenage boy. (I called the guidance counselor instead.)

He has helped me sponsor a child with his allowance.

He has agreed to reduce our budget so we can help subsidize the needs of my step-children, his half-siblings.

Love: grow it, share it.

He has lived, as have I, on both sides of the equation.

Our pantry is full these days. Our fridge is stocked with healthy foods and unhealthy treats.  We've heat and hot water when needed.  When his toes dig a hole into a sock, I turn it into a rag for clean-up and polishing...and I buy the new socks. 

I have two step-children now.

Apparently I did for some years, as they are 12 and 9. But it's only recently that I have been made aware of, and stepped into the responsibility that comes with, that title.

They have grown up in neglect and in poverty, and in the abuse that their parents create. They have and would go without breakfast were it not for the free breakfast program at their school. Each week, come Friday, they are handed a bag of processed food to take home so that there will be something for them to eat over the weekend. I have heard that my step-daughter has complained that the free lunch at school doesn't begin to fill the gnawing hole. I have heard that my step-son, when given free reign, will eat until he makes himself sick. There are agencies and programs seeing to their very basic welfare.  They know what poverty looks like and feels like and tastes like.

I have sent money and giftcards and boxes of food and treats and clothing. 

I have tried to plug the leak from afar; watching in dismay as they go under, over and again.

I have tried, desperately, to find a way to honour vows I made so long ago, by being there in the diminished capacity of living 8 hours away.

I have tried to build a bridge for them to cross when they have need of me.

I have argued with myself, debating the intensity of their need vs. my own comfort and self-respect.  I have struggled to push aside my own fear and anger, and find room in my heart to be present and accountable and dependable...to do the next right thing even though it hurts.

(And all of this, and so much more beyond, is why I have been silent here so very long.)

If you've made it this far in the reading, I wonder how you feel? 

Are you shocked by my admissions?

Embarrassed for me? 

Do you think less of me?

Does my experience or his or theirs make you uncomfortable?

Do you wonder what I did wrong to earn that part of my life?

Are you reminding yourself that you would never-could never-sink so low?

Are you thinking you are better than that?

Are you reading this, jaw gone slack, thinking that I should never have had the nerve to put these words to page?

I wonder how you feel.

I wonder what sentence struck a chord with you.

I wonder if my words here, change anything there...where you are..

I hope they do.

I hope my open-vein on this page has poured life into the black and white facts regarding poverty and childhood hunger.  I hope you see people and faces now, instead of numbers.

And if you do...

If my words reached you...

Donate that canned good.

Fulfill that angel tree wish.

Fill up useable purses and backpacks with supplies and turn them over to foster-care programs.

Buy that extra box of diapers or tampons or toilet paper and take it to that shelter.

Send in the extra snack or snacks or lunches.

Encourage your school to keep a "free" food station for children whose parents couldn't or didn't send in lunch.

Check in with the guidance counselor and let him/her know if you can help...I guarantee you, they not only know exactly which kids need your help but how to do so with the discretion and anonymity those kids and their families deserve.

Ask your Food Days reps to set aside the unused portions and take them to a pantry or a family in need.  Ask your PTO to purchase a fridge to put those unused meals into, so an anonymous family in need can pick  up dinner for their children that night from the guidance office.

If your school provides those weekend-rescue-bags, donate healthy options to go in them.

And hear me...loudly, clearly...hear me when I tell you we would not have made it, were it not for those already doing the good.

~Leanna

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Below is the link the video mentioned above, which triggered this whole post from me.

https://www.facebook.com/powerofpositivity/videos/10154818617787371/?v=10154818617787371