TALK TO YOUR KIDS

 3:04 PM 1/31/2014

My Dear Son,

Here's a letter for you.  It's one I've been working on for quite some time, both on paper and in my head.

It all started nearly a year ago when I found out you'd been arrested.  Imagine my suprise, since I'd actually believed you when you'd said you were doing fine.  Funny thing, it looked like you were, and I didn't do enough deep digging to actually prove one way or the other whether you were or not.  Silly me.

I had been pretty sure I understood your reasons for not wanting me any closer to you or your family. After all, I have been critical of your choices in the past, and it's easy to remember that you think of me as just an Old Drunk who's made many bad choices herself, huh.

It's not like I gave you really Great Examples about how to live.  Nope, I just fought to raise you. I kept food on the table, shoes on your feet, kept you in school, paid attention to you nearly 24/7, loved you always, taught you every single thing I knew about survival and happiness, and avoided jail myself.
And never EVER came close to actually giving you away.  I would have fought to the death anyone who tried to take you from me because I believed that Love.. really would get you through times of little money. 

Perhaps I should have listened to those who told me that I couldn't raise you on your own with no child support.  I knew that I could, and wanted to more than anything I'd ever done in my life.  At 31 years old I made that commitment to raise you.  I could have chosen different: It was always an option to abort you, or birth you and give you away.

Trust me, I thought about it. A LOT.  Should I have just dumped you into the system and let all the chips fall wherever?  It probably would have made MY life easier.

I have to wonder today, if it would have improved yours.

It's the choice you made for YOUR children, without ever once asking me if I wanted to make that committment one more time.

Nobody has ever been promised that Parenting is easy, and I've had really high hopes for the past 5 years that you, my beloved son, would figure that out as you became a parent yourself.  Of course it's a little selfish of me to think that raising your own kids would give you new insights into the heart and soul that was put into raising you..
 But I dreamed you would someday catch up with your old Ma here and say "Wow: Thanks for hanging in there with me Mom".

That fantasy kept me warmish during all the times you made excuses about why you couldn't share my grandkids with me.
 I continued to defend you ferociously against any and all of your detractors, and make many excuses for you to any who actually loved you or me enough to inquire about you.  I BELIEVED in you my son, and truly believed you were growing up, reaching out, and becoming someone I'd be really proud to know.

Then you got busted, in a very stupid way for a very stupid crime.  That was.. STUPID, yup.  Do Crime/Do Time etc etc but you gave away my grandkids by choice.
 You did something there that is so far beyond anything I ever taught you or did to you that I am at a complete loss:

Did you want me to 'rescue' these children that I hardly even know?
 I could, probably, though it would take a lot of outside help. (I am old, single, poor, disabled and not a great candidate for Fostering 2 toddlers)

  Do you expect me to 'do the right thing' because I mostly always have?
 I'd be happy to try, but only when I believe it's best for the 2 babies involved.

 Are you counting on me to Parent you one more time despite the fact you're in prison and your wife is missing and your children are being fought over in court by folks I don't know?
 Then I suggest you talk to me.  2 letters in the year you've been incarcerated indicate that you really don't feel.. like talking to your Mom, Son.

I am sorry you are in prison Son.  So am I.  We are all locked up and locked down in our own ways, I love you.