Mother’s Day was a mixed bag of emotions for me. My husband had gone out-of-town for the weekend so it was just Josiah and I at home.

Drake came to spend the night with us on Friday. He is such a sweet little guy. He seems to be doing remarkably well with the reality that his sister and mother are not going to be physically present in his life. It makes him sad, of course, but he has adjusted. I was planning to take him home about 5:00 on Saturday so I told him to start getting ready about 4:00. He looked at me with these huge sad eyes and shook his head. I laughed at him and told him to call his dad to see if he could stay til 8:00. Dad said okay so we had a few extra hours.

When Drake was little, one of his first full phrases was something about “Unky Joe” being his “best friend.” That hasn’t changed much. I really should have taken some pictures of them playing together. Made me laugh! Josiah stayed home Friday evening so he could spend time with Drake. Wrestling, video games, movies, pizza, happy laughter. It was a good thing!

Sunday morning Josiah and I got up and went to church together. He sat with me, rather than with his friends, since it was Mother’s Day, and told me he planned to spend the whole afternoon hanging out with me too! (He usually spends Sunday afternoons with his friends.) So after church we went to lunch. Yummy fajitas! He offered to pick up a movie to watch with me but I told him I really wanted my usual Sunday nap and he should go hang out with his friends!

That far the weekend was mostly great, so I was totally unprepared for the wave of sadness that washed over me when I went in my room to get ready for my nap. Tears began to flow as I pulled my dress over my head. I sat down in my bedroom chair and called Bert. He asked what was wrong and I told him that Mother’s Day had just reminded me of how badly we are broken.  After I talked to him for a bit, and calmed down, I called my mom to wish her a happy Mother’s Day, and wound up crying on her shoulder too!

It has been 2 years now since we last heard from Dirk (except for one text message from his wife telling us Abbie is happy). When he told us that he no longer wanted anything to do with us … I don’t think we had any idea it was going to go on this long. I know that he has been spreading vicious lies about us and his childhood which makes it even harder for me. I understand that part of it is perspective and that he doesn’t see his childhood the same way I do anymore than I see mine the same way my parents do. I don’t blame him at all for those things. But … oh never mind … I need to let it go. It just hurts! And then there is Erica. I’m not sure exactly when we lost her but we see/hear very little from her now. In a way she too blames us for the path her life has taken. Where Dirk says he was abused, physically and emotionally, Erica says she was overprotected and therefore unprepared for the real world. The truth falls somewhere in the middle. Both extremes are hurtful. What’s most hurtful is that we have “lost” them. We don’t know where they are, what they’re doing, whether they are safe.

It hurts my heart even more that they have both abandoned their biological children. Honestly … I think Jaden is blessed by Dirk’s absence from his life. They have never seen each other. Jaden is being raised by a daddy who loves and raises him as his own. But some day he is going to know that he didn’t matter to his biological dad and it is going to hurt! And Drake and Mallory have already been hurt by the reality that Erica chose men, friends, and drugs, over them. How does a kid deal with that? Mallory has been whisked off to Hawaii and we haven’t seen her in almost a year or spoken to her in 6 months.

So I was sad! And Josiah, who tries so hard to be enough to make up for his siblings, felt bad that he couldn’t. He can’t fix it and there are days when the pain overwhelms me afresh. I tried to explain and I guess he got it but he thinks I should be able to just put it away since I can’t fix it.

I didn’t want to write this yesterday because I don’t want to be a downer on a happy day but … this is my reality … and some times it stinks!