Sometimes .. something really good happens.
Scribing at 8:48 a.m. on 2004-10-05
Sometimes, yanno, things happen and you just don't know exactly what to say about them. But you feel compelled to talk about them anyway, because .. maybe it was something really important even though, like I said, you're not sure exactly what to say about it.
Sometimes, from nowhere, and when you totally don't expect it, something really good happens to you.
I saw my kid yesterday.
I haven't seen my kid in .. three years? Something like that? Maybe closer to four.
I didn't expect to see him, really, again.
Some of you may remember a couple of entries back a while ago about Ex From Hell. I'm not even sure what little colloquial name I gave her at the time that I wrote about her; because I've only written about her once or twice in here. It was the one that caused me to lose the job I'd had for almost ten years; the mother to the kids I didn't spawn. Back some time ago I happened to write about missing the kids so badly that I actually considered, at length, contacting the woman because she was the only one I could think of that might know where they were. (They are both grown now, with families and kids of their own.) I finally sucked it up and risked bringing the most psychopathically manipulative woman I had ever met back into my life for a chance to see my kids again; I sent an email to her last known address and held my breath .. but it bounced back – she had my email blocked. I actually breathed a sigh of relief; I was that concerned about risking contact with her. But that also left me once again with no idea how to get in touch with the kids, and missing them so badly it was like a physical ache.
Some background for you folks who have no idea what I’m talking about ..
I met the kids, and their psychotic mother, some 24 years ago. The oldest was 6, his younger brother at the tail end of 4, close to 5. I was with someone at the time, and so was she; we were passing acquaintances until a couple of years after that. When we became involved I fell in love with her, but my attachment to the kids was even more profound. I loved these guys. In the next 16 years, the kids and I had a profound impact on each other’s lives. I made their lunches, helped with their homework, laid on the couch with them on Saturday mornings watching cartoons. Took care of them when they were sick, took them to the zoo, the mall, the auto shows. Taught them about girls, bought them their first condoms, taught them to drive. Paid for their proms. Took off work to sit in the hospital when the oldest one’s appendix burst, so he would eat; because much to the chagrin of his grandmother, he kept asking for me. Got up in the middle of the night to go pick them up when they called me, worried that their friend at the party had gotten too drunk to drive them home. Threw on my pants and run down the stairs in the middle of the night when I got the call that the oldest one was driving his girlfriend to the hospital because she was in labor. It never occurred to me to care that they hadn’t happened to pop from my testicles. They were my kids. I loved them with everything in my heart.
When their mother and I finally parted ways I made it clear to them that I loved them still, and they were always welcome regardless of where I was. They tested that, as teenagers will, in a variety of ways. They would skip school and come to my apartment in the early morning and insist on spending the day with me. They passed judgment on any girl I considered dating from then until I met the Diva. Oddly, they were always right. Well, almost always. Not a bad track record for teenage boys, I have to say.
Back in the fall of 2000, their mother and I went head to head in the biggest schism to hit North America, it seems. I had pegged the meter on her bizarre manipulative behavior when she caused me to lose my job; literally years after we had broken up. The woman, people told me, had issues. I had interacted with her up until that time, simply because of the kids, and because I thought that despite her psychosis, it was easier on the kids if we could be in the same room without killing each other. I trusted that despite her mental imbalances she would do the right things in the end, if only for the kids; and then for the grandkids as they arrived.
Well, ok. It was overly optimistic of me, but I didn’t know it at the time; and I underestimated the true depth of her psychotic capabilities.
Anyway, so yeah. The big schism. The youngest, M, ended up feeling as though he had to take his mother’s ‘side’, if such a thing is an appropriate way to phrase a hellishly bad situation like the one we all lived through. The eldest, J, made it clear that regardless of what happened, he ‘was not willing to lose (me), and wanted (me) in his life’. Nonetheless, their mother did everything she could to damage my relationship with them, including (but not limited to) telling them outright lies about me, and about the Diva; intercepting mail from me; and even going so far as to tell J that we had moved from our house and left the state, so that he would think I’d not only basically abandoned him, but that trying to contact me was pointless. In the interim she ‘generously’ helped both kids get their own places, so that they would not be at the last known addresses I had for them; and since she had made it clear that I was ‘no longer interested in contact with them’ and had ‘moved out of state’, they would not attempt to get in touch with me even if they wanted to.
J had a son that I had never seen. The crazy bitch called a couple of days after the child was born and left a gloating voicemail on our machine with the baby’s birth stats and hung up.
The Diva and I married, and I couldn’t find my kids to let them know. They were not at my wedding. J got married to his girlfriend, and I was not there.
Three, perhaps four years passed. I missed them every day. Two days ago I came across some pictures of me and J that were taken when he got back from his tour of duty in the Navy. I showed them to the Diva. We talked about the day the pictures were taken.
Yesterday, I got up and made myself some breakfast. I was sitting in front of the computer and the Diva called, and we talked briefly while I skimmed my email and ate. We hung up, and I was dicking around online and the phone rang again. I assumed it was her, so I just picked it up without looking at the caller ID; and said ‘yeah?’. There was a long pause. A man’s voice said (insert my name here) with a questioning tone. I squinted, assuming it was someone trying to get my happy ass to come into the Snake Pit early. I said ‘speaking’, since I couldn’t place the voice. ‘Is this (insert first and surname here)?’ and I squinted again, thinking .. damn this voice sounds familiar. Who the hell …? And suddenly it hit me like a bolt in the head. ‘J??’ .. (a semi-longish pause, and then a smile in the voice) … ‘yeah. It’s me.’
I don’t know how long it took for my heart to start beating again, or for me to start breathing. He had spent the last couple of years traveling around the US and a couple of other assorted countries for work. He was back in the city. He was staying, actually, not far from where we live. He had no idea where I was, and had decided to try the last phone number that he had for me, hoping that at least perhaps someone would know where I was. We started talking in a rush, both at the same time. He said he’d been down the street from our house, but .. believing that I had left the state (as he’d been told by psycho bitch) he’d driven by the house and parked outside for a while just .. thinking back. Missing me. Had no idea how to find me, or where I’d gone. We talked about 20 minutes. Turned out he wasn’t working that day, and I said ‘boy, get your ass over here.’
An hour later he was walking up my sidewalk and knocking on the door.
I opened the door, and we stood there looking at each other for long moments. He stepped up onto the porch and threw his arms around me and we stood there in the tightest hug humanly possible for over five minutes. Yeah. I think there might have been some crying involved, but I don’t recall.
We sat down at the kitchen table and stayed there for .. I don’t know. Something like ten hours. We had a lot of catching up to do. I made him a sandwich and gave him a beer. He’d been through a lot in the last few years. So had I. We caught each other up.
Somewhere in there the Diva came home. She’d called while we were talking and I’d told her there was a surprise for her when she got home from class. She walked in the door and saw him sitting there at the table. Put her briefcase down and opened her arms and said ‘Come here, baby’ and he threw his arms around her. More of that long term hugging thing.
He finally left at midnight. I waited until his truck pulled away to let myself start crying. He’d told us all the things his mother had told them, including that we had moved out of state. Including all the small things she’d said to drive a wedge between us. All the lies, manipulation, and just plain sad things she’d done to make sure we lost each other.
Then he told me he hadn’t talked to her in over six months, and wasn’t likely to any time soon. He told me what she’d tried to do to his life, and what he wouldn’t allow.
After he left, I drove to the Snake Pit. There was only one project to do, so I did it; punched back out and drove home. I was exhausted, emotionally spent, but happy.
Sometimes .. when you have totally given up hope .. something really good happens to you.
I saw my kid yesterday.
