Eight Years

It's been eight years.  My husband took me to court in November of 1999 and sued for divorce and custody of our children.  Eight years, and you'd think I was over it by now.

Fact is, it's not the divorce I grieve nearly as much as the loss of the children.  When I think of all the things we could have done to prevent a separation and divorce, it cuts like a knife to the heart.  But when I think of the loss and grief that my children sustained, it's more like being drowned, strangled and stabbed all at the same time.  A killing grief.

Jenny Rebecca is eleven years old now.  Calvin is twelve; James, thirteen, Alexandra, seventeen.  I've missed their formative years, and they've not had a mommy.


At what point does one begin to get over it? Is there any "getting over it"?  Or is it simply that life goes on around a person, swirling colors and bodies weaving past without any acknowledgment on my part?  It's as though I am standing still on a busy sidewalk, bewildered by the activity around me, and yet totally inured to the fact that other people live and breathe and have purpose to their lives.
At least I know the source of my insanity.  Not everyone is that fortunate.  Believing that recognition of the fact that I've lost my mind is half the battle, I now fight to retain what little sanity remains, and to rebuild my life from the ashes that surround me.

God is my refuge and my strength...an ever present help in times of trouble.

Unable to ascertain how best to help the children heal, I focus on doing what I can for them now, doing my best to heal my own heart so that if ever they come to me as adults I can be to them the mother they lost.  Over the years my visitation times have been cut down to a mere several times a year-in a public setting-for about an hour per visit.  Last year I made them each a blanket for Christmas.  All year long I crocheted the soft, fluffy comforters.  I chose colors that either represented them (in my mind) or colors and styles I thought they would enjoy.  In my absence perhaps they will wrap up in these blankets and picture my arms around them, holding them close, loving them.  As I sewed, I prayed; I grieved, I thought and I wondered.  The children know none of this.  This year I made photo albums filled with pictures from their early years, pictures that focus either on the precious nature of their very being, or on my loving on them.  The books end with photos of me, smiling into the camera and loving them from afar.

Will they like them?  I don't know if I will ever know.  I still don't know what they thought of the afghans.  But this I know: I love my children...I hate not being with them...and one day, one day I pray, we will be reunited. 

Eight years is nothing in light of eternity.