We’re like strangers.
I see him on rare occasion when my stalking, nagging and
pleading result in a reluctant visit that is fleeting at best, and painful for
him at the least. There are always
a million reasons why his father won’t comply with our agreement, but that’s
another story. For now, the boy has chosen to spend as much time with his father as he can.
His sisters have found a way to (somewhat) come to terms
with their new reality. One has
reached out to try to maintain a relationship with both of her parents; the
other … has not. Perhaps, having
been around the longest, she has experienced things that she can’t bury inside
her heart.
I do my very best to remind them all that I love them more than life itself, and even though we
continue to fight, laugh, love and cry – I’m pretty sure they believe me.
But for now, the Golden Boy and I are strangers.
I remember the giggling boy who ran around the yard in his
sister’s bathing suit. The boy who insisted I cuddle with him each night before
he went to bed, and re-assured him that his father did, indeed, love him. I threw him the football, played basketball
with him, rode bikes with him, followed him as he peddled the green tractor
along the bike path and watched him befriend other kids each time I took him to
the beach at my sister’s house in Mystic. I held his hand as he received stitches, fake skin and
spent the night with him in the hospital during the worst of his bouts with croup.
Yet tonight as I drove him back to his father’s in relative
silence, I realized the painful reality of the day: we’re strangers.
And this stranger’s heart is still broken.
Still painfully, painfully broken.
