Picking Up the Broken Pieces of My Son's Heart...

Father's Day...a time of honoring Dads, right? Well, in my household, it is a time of confusion, and sadness, and hard conversations. Yes, I know my son is not the only kid in the world who doesn't know his dad, but he is MY son, and I am the one dealing with this right now, so I needed to write it all down. I will publish this, but not post it on my Facebook, because my son's father is there...as well as his daughters, and several other family members...but I just needed to get this off my chest, and this is my best outlet for it. 


My son went seven years without ever hearing from his father, and although it was tough, it was just what he was used to, and it was actually pretty simple. He knew his dad's name, and knew where he lived, but had never met him, or even heard from him, by phone, letter, email, text, or telegram...then, out of the blue, his new wife sent me a message on Facebook, telling me that he wanted to start a relationship with Gavin, but didn't know how to go about it. I was told that he talked about him a lot, and he felt like it was too late to just jump into his life. I was VERY leery. First off, I didn't hear from HIM...I heard from his new wife...and it had been 7 years...I have raised my son alone for 7 years, from day one, because his father has chosen to not be a part.


Ya see, I tried to keep him involved when my son was a baby...I sent him pics and letters, including addresses and phone numbers of how I could be reached (I had moved to a different city, although he had not made any effort to be there for the first few months, anyway). I never, ever, got a return letter from him. When my son had his first seizure, around 18 months old, I called him, to let him know, and ask about his family history...all he said was "no, no seizures"...never even asked about his son, to see if he was okay...when my son was diagnosed with a disability at age 2, I sent him another letter...again, without response. I gave up, and went on with my life.


When my son was 4, I decided to find his half-sisters that I knew about, and when I contacted them, they didn't even know that my son existed. I was not surprised, really, but it did kind of hurt me to know that he never told anyone about his son. His sisters decided that wanted a relationship with their brother (they were young adults by this time), and we set to work on building that relationship. Still, their father never contacted us, and chose not to be a part of his life. Another three years passed...


That brings us back to November, 2011...when I got a random message from my son's father's new wife...I prayed about it, and decided to ask my son what he wanted to do. He decided he would write a letter to his dad, and he wanted to send him pictures of himself from the time he was a baby until present day. We went through and printed a bunch of pictures off of my computer, and he wrote him a letter, and colored a couple pictures...and we mailed them all to his father. Within weeks, he received a response, along with a couple small gifts, and my son was SO excited to have a letter from his FATHER...he wrote him another letter, and the second response took a little longer, but it came...and he wrote him another letter...we mailed that one in March 2012, and it is now June, and he has not heard back from him since. So, now, my son is heartbroken, again, and of course, today was Father's Day, so that made it even harder for him. He is very confused, wondering if he will hear back from him, thinking maybe his last letter got lost in the mail...he has so many questions...and I have absolutely no answers. I am always having to pick up the pieces of my child's broken heart. I almost hate myself for allowing him to get his hopes up, of a relationship with his father...


Like I said, I needed to get this off my chest...if you are a subscriber, you will be the only ones who reads this, and I think I have like 2 subscribers...I may post it to Twitter, though...but if you read this, and have any suggestions, I welcome them...if not, that's okay. I am really just writing this to get it off my chest. If you have actually read to this point, thank you.

Snow!

We woke up Thursday morning to a phone call from the School Board saying there was no school. I knew there would be a chance of this, and had prepared Gavin by telling him it MIGHT snow, and he MIGHT NOT have school. Well, he was excited, because, as you know, we are from FL, and it does not snow there, and we had never seen snow! Well, the phone call woke us both, and as soon as I told Gavin, he ran to the window and GASPED! He was amazed at all the snow on the ground and wanted to immediately put on his boots and jacket and gloves and go out in it. Well, it was not yet 6 AM, and still dark, so I convinced him to wait until the sun had risen. He kept going to the window to see if it was light outside yet, and was discouraged every five minutes until a little over an hour had passed. We finally got to gear up and go outside and we were both SO THRILLED! This is how he looked the very first minute he was standing in snow:

As you can see he is so excited! And it is still kinda dark outside. We had such a good time, he liked the way it crunched beneath his feet when he walked, he loved running around in it and leaving giant footprints behind, and he liked trying to make snowballs. I had to make snowballs for him, and then hand them to him, so he could throw them....at me! That is true love when you do something so someone else can target you. The smile on his face never wavered throughout the whole time we were outside. He had so much fun. I was thrilled, as it was my first time seeing the powdery white stuff as well, and I really enjoyed everything about it. I kept looking around and thinking about God and how He is perfect and how beautiful a world He has designed for us to live in. He amazes me more and more every day. Gavin's favorite part of playing in the snow was making snow angels. We went out three times total yesterday and he made so many snow angels. My child is awesome and he loves the snow, and he knows that God made the snow. So, today we still have snow on the ground, and we are going to go back out and play in it and make snow angels to glorify God. I have to try to remember to glorify God in everything I do today. Without Him, I wouldn't exist, and without Jesus Christ, I wouldn't be who I am today.