One of them, the soldier, has gone of the radar at the moment, but the other two I talk to regularly. link
He's still very young, and circumstances may bring him back again. Many children pull away from awhile, for many reasons that have little to do with their families--especially boys, I think!
Anyway, I hope you will hear from him soon.
You did your best, and that counts for everything. I can only imagine how hard it must have been, but I admire you very much for having done it, having seen the pain that not making a relationship can cause a child.
And I think I can also say that letting go and attempting a clean break ("I now consider them your children") doesn't really work. There's still something left.
You can't shut off bonding like a faucet, I don't think.
I still care for the boy I once knew whom I married and loved, who was with me when our children was born.
I was glad to think about him after he got out of the hospital, still not breathing well, but with his kind and patient wife to take care of him (as I never could). I still like to think of him sitting by his window, reading.
Even though he lives 18 miles from my house, and never calls my daughter.
What remains is: Why wasn't what we offered him enough? And does he have regrets? Guilt? We'll never know.
I can't just shut him out of my heart. I remember him when he was a boy, when he got his first three-piece suit and was so proud of how he looked; and how much he wanted, for awhile, to be a good person.
I guess, because I can't love him now as a woman, I love him as a mother might. That will have to be enough. It is enough.
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Date: 2004-11-14 12:00 am (UTC)link
He's still very young, and circumstances may bring him back again. Many children pull away from awhile, for many reasons that have little to do with their families--especially boys, I think!
Anyway, I hope you will hear from him soon.
You did your best, and that counts for everything. I can only imagine how hard it must have been, but I admire you very much for having done it, having seen the pain that not making a relationship can cause a child.
And I think I can also say that letting go and attempting a clean break ("I now consider them your children") doesn't really work. There's still something left.
You can't shut off bonding like a faucet, I don't think.
I still care for the boy I once knew whom I married and loved, who was with me when our children was born.
I was glad to think about him after he got out of the hospital, still not breathing well, but with his kind and patient wife to take care of him (as I never could). I still like to think of him sitting by his window, reading.
Even though he lives 18 miles from my house, and never calls my daughter.
What remains is: Why wasn't what we offered him enough? And does he have regrets? Guilt? We'll never know.
I can't just shut him out of my heart. I remember him when he was a boy, when he got his first three-piece suit and was so proud of how he looked; and how much he wanted, for awhile, to be a good person.
I guess, because I can't love him now as a woman, I love him as a mother might. That will have to be enough. It is enough.