Why I Stayed

After I got the boys off to school this morning, I came back home and sat down in front of the laptop as I often do, trying to finish waking up. I scrolled through my facebook newsfeed and I saw a link that several people had posted, and it caught my attention.

19 #WhyIStayed Tweets That Everyone Needs to See

If you haven't read that article yet, do it. Do it now.

Read the tweets. All of them. 

Read the last paragraph.

Now think about what you just read. I mean, really think about it.

How many times have you heard about a domestic violence situation, and questioned why the victim didn't just leave? How many times have you said something along the lines of "If that was me, I'd kick him in the junk and walk out the door"? 

Do you know how many times I said that before?

Trust me when I say that it's not that easy. It's hard. Staying in a bad situation is hard, but leaving is even harder.

A bike ride with this kind of scenery -
perfect therapy.

I went for a bike ride after I read that article. I needed to get out of the house and away from the computer and get some fresh air and quit crying. I ended up going about 6 miles, which is about 5 miles longer than any ride I've done recently, and even with a minor spill along the way, it did me good to work through my thoughts.

It has been 5 years, 4 months, and 3 days since I left my second marriage. And reading tweets like that can still bring me to tears, remembering exactly how it felt. I could feel the pain in those tweets. I can still feel the pain of what I went through - both physically and mentally.

Why did I stay for so long?

We He made the decision that I should quit my job and stay home with the kids. I had no job, no income, no way to support myself and my kids if I left. So I stayed.

I knew that I could file for child support and apply for assistance and things like that, but knowing the bureaucracy and red tape of the system, I wouldn't get it immediately - and landlords don't accept "I'll pay you in a couple of months" before they offer you a lease on your own place away from the abuse. So I stayed.

When we bought the van, he put it in his name because it was "easier" - leaving me with no transportation if I walked out. So I stayed.

Sure, he was mean when he drank. But he was nice to us when he was sober. So I stayed.

He worked hard at his job all day, so when he came home and the house wasn't clean enough, it was definitely my fault because I didn't work hard enough to clean it. But I knew that I could do better to make him happy. So I stayed.

I just needed to be a better wife and mother, and he'd stop drinking and treat me better. I could fix everything that was wrong. So I stayed.

When he dozed off on the couch and I finally figured out that he was hiding flasks of booze in his boots, he responded by kicking me as hard as he could. But really, I had just startled him and it was a reflex, and he didn't really mean to do it. So I stayed.

He choked me in a drunken rage when I was 6 months pregnant with our son. But I had made him angry when I grabbed his shirt to make him look me in the eyes and be honest with me. After I bailed him out of jail that night, he swore that it would never happen again. So I stayed.

He really didn't mean to knock me down and fling my glasses across the floor when he hit me upside the head. I was already crouching down so I was off-balance when he hit me - otherwise it wouldn't have happened. And he really didn't mean to hit me - it was accidental. Honest. So I stayed.

He was with his first wife for close to 20 years. Obviously, if she stayed with him for that long, things must have been fine and this behavior must have started when he married me. I must have somehow broken him - so I had to fix him. So I stayed.

If I left, who would take care of him? I loved him, and I didn't want to hurt him. So I stayed.

I loved him. So I stayed.

It finally took him pulling a knife to get me to realize that I didn't deserve this anymore. My kids didn't deserve it either. No one deserves it - men, women, children, young, old, black, white - it doesn't matter.

If you know of someone who is being abused - the last thing that he/she needs is your judgment. That person needs your support and your love more than anything. It's so hard to get out of those situations - contrary to popular belief, resources are not always readily available. It is not something that most victims are willing to discuss with just anyone, and so often the allegations of abuse come as a surprise to those around them - and they're not always believed, making it harder to get the support that is needed to get out of the situation.

Stop judging the victims. Support them. Love them. Be there for them. 

697 days

We reached a milestone today.

697 days.

Daniel was born on June 10, 2007. On May 6, 2009 - I told his father to leave our home for the last time ... 697 days later.

Daniel and I met The Dude for the first time on November 25, 2011 - 697 days ago.

As of today, The Dude has been a part of Daniel's life longer than his biological father was.

It's bittersweet for both of us. I asked The Dude today what he thought about it and his response was "conflicted". He's glad to be a part of Daniel's life, but at the same time he feels bad that Daniel will never get to know his father.

Honestly, it's the same for me. I know that his father loved him. I know that he had the potential to be a great father. But it just didn't happen that way. The addiction was too much to overcome and it tore our family apart before it took him away from us forever.

But, we have a good life now. We have come so far as a family and we are finally in a good place. The Dude has been amazing to all of us. Daniel looks to him as a father and I am so incredibly thankful for that. He knows that he has another father - but he also knows that The Dude is there for him and loves him even though there isn't a biological connection.

At his age, Daniel doesn't realize the significance of today. I've been thinking about it for weeks, because not only do I realize what this means for Daniel, but I realize what it means for me. I never dreamed that I would allow anyone to become such a huge part of our lives, but yet somehow, The Dude has wormed his way in and he still claims that he plans on staying. We have gone through so much crap in the past few months between work schedules and house hunting and injuries and illnesses and vehicle breakdowns and stress and chaos and panic - and yet we're still hanging in there (and creeping dangerously close to our 2 year anniversary) and doing everything that we can to care for our family - even if it's split between a couple of different residences for a few more months.

Life is good. Crazy, chaotic, and not always predictable, but it's good.

Two years.

Today is an anniversary. Not a happy one, either.

I wrote this post 2 years ago today, just a few hours after it happened. I wrote this one on the first anniversary, one year ago today. You can go back and read those to get the full story - because I'm not going to relive it again.

I read both of them a few hours ago. And I cried. It still hurts, even after two years and all of the progress that I've made - it. still. hurts.

I don't get it.

For the most part, life is good. If you know me in real life or if you've read my blog for any extended period of time, you know I'm generally a very happy person. However, I've been dreading this day for weeks but was hopeful that it wouldn't bother me that much.

Wrong.

Contrary to what some people might believe, it still really gets to me.

I don't really know what it is that bothers me. There are so many mixed emotions and it's so hard to explain to anyone - including myself - what is going through my head right now

For the most part, I don't feel guilty. I mean, I do - but I don't. I know that I didn't force him to drink. In fact, I did everything in my power while we were together to get him to stop drinking - but he wouldn't couldn't. I firmly believe that I did everything that I could, but a part of me still wonders if I couldn't have done more. But I will never know the answer to that.

I still grieve the loss of what could have been. When I married him, I wanted the happily ever after. But we didn't get that. Even after we separated, I still wanted it. I still hoped that he would get sober and we could reconcile and get that happily ever after. But it didn't happen. That hope was yanked out from under me the day that he died.

I am sad that Daniel will never know his father. He wasn't even 2 years old when we separated so I doubt that he remembers anything. He recognizes his father in pictures, and he knows that his father got sick and died and is in Heaven now - but he's too young to understand much more than that. The older kids remember more, obviously - and we keep our talks about him centered around the good memories rather than the bad ones, as much for Daniel's sake as for our own.

I know that as time goes on, it will get easier. It is already easier in many ways - but there are still days that it sneaks up on me and it still takes me by surprise. Maybe one of these years, the day will just go on past and I won't even remember the significance of the date until later. Maybe it'll happen next year, or the year after, or 10 years down the road. Maybe it will never happen.

All I know right now is that no matter how happy I am, there is still that sadness. It's not so much for me as it is for Daniel. And although I am sad that he will never know his father, I am thrilled that he has The Dude in his life to take on the role of a father figure for him. Knowing that he will grow up with a man in his life who loves all of us in spite of everything makes the sadness easier to handle.

It's not the life that I had planned - but it's the life that we have now. And we are doing whatever we can to make sure that it is the best life possible.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

March 27, 2006 - our wedding day

5 years ago...

The story of Daniel's birth is one that I haven't told in great detail for a lot of reasons. But I'm going to tell it now - for those very same reasons.

This is what I looked like on June 9, 2007. Daniel wasn't due until June 19, and I wasn't having any symptoms of going into labor, but we decided to take a picture anyway, and I am so glad that we did!

If you have been following my blog for any length of time, you might remember that Daniel's father was an alcoholic. He battled it for many years, but it didn't work. He continued to drink. And when he drank, he could be very mean and at times was even physically abusive. I had told him numerous times throughout my pregnancy that if he was drunk when I went into labor, I would go to the hospital myself - hoping that the threat would keep him from drinking. But, it didn't work.

That night, he was drunk. He went upstairs to bed and passed out fairly early in the night. I sat up to watch a movie - "Deep Impact" - until it was over around 2:00am on Sunday morning, June 10. During the movie, I started to feel....funky. I had a bizarre pain that kept coming and going every 5 minutes, but it wasn't a contraction so I wasn't too concerned. But, it continued. Finally, at the end of the movie I decided that I would just go ahead and go to the hospital - even if I wasn't in labor, I thought that if he woke up and I was gone, it might make him think twice before he took the next drink.

I got up off of the couch and walked into the kitchen to get the charger for my phone to put in my bag, and then went around the corner to go up the steps to get a receiving blanket. As I lifted my leg to go up the first step, my water broke - and when I say "broke" I really mean that it exploded. Everywhere. This had never happened with the previous 4 pregnancies, so I started to panic. I stood there thinking to myself "this is my 5th kid, my water just exploded, and this kid is going to come NOW!" So I started yelling for him to wake up. Every time I took a breath to yell, more fluid gushed out, making me panic even more. Finally, he woke up and realized what was happening - I told him to grab a towel from the upstairs bathroom and get moving. He brought me the towel and I basically diapered myself with it and told him to meet me in the van - and don't forget the carseat.

I walked out the back door, calling the hospital to let them know that I was on my way. As I stepped out of the door, I felt my hair stand up on end and realized that there was lightning in the sky - everywhere around me. I waddled as fast as I could to the van and waited for him. Finally, he came out, with his cigarettes in his hand, but no carseat. I yelled at him, asking him where the carseat was, and he started to turn around to go back and get it, and a contraction hit. I told him to forget about it, get into the van, and DRIVE!

It was the scariest drive ever. Here he was, drunk, driving me to the hospital. I should have driven, but I wasn't sure that I could in the condition that I was in at the time. When we got to the hospital, he dropped me off at the ER entrance and went to park the van. I bolted waddled as fast as I could to the maternity wing and quickly told a nurse that my husband was coming behind me, and he was drunk. She assured me that if he created a scene, he would be asked to leave.

We got to my room and I got the epidural almost immediately. He passed out on the recliner in the room and I was able to doze off and on for a few hours. By the time I was in active labor, he was sober. I have to admit that he was fantastic while I labored and throughout the delivery. We were both happy and it was a great moment. He stayed throughout the day, and went home that night.

The next morning I was scheduled to get my tubes tied. He got there before I left for surgery and waited until I was done. Then he said that he was going to go back to the house to check the mail. I was suspicious, but I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. He came back a few hours later carrying a travel mug, and one look at his face told me that my suspicions were correct. He was wasted. He walked back out of the room to get something from the cafeteria, and the nurses immediately descended on my room, and they informed me that he had walked into the wrong room before he got to mine, and they were ready to call for security. Instead, we came up with a code - if when he came back to the room, either the nurses or I felt that he needed to be removed from the premises, we would say something about calling "Dr. Smith" (the pediatrician).

He came back in minus the travel mug, and Dr. Smith was right behind him. The nurse and I looked at each other like "oh crap, what about our code?" He immediately started getting mouthy with the doctor, telling her that she needed to go get HIM something to eat. She looked at the nurse and said "I think you need to make that phone called that we discussed" and the nurse walked out of the room.

Within minutes, there were 4 city police officers in my room surrounding me. Two of them pulled my husband out of the room while 2 stayed with me, questioning me. Sadly, they were all-too-familiar with our situation, as they had all been to our house before due to the history of violence during his drinking binges. He was escorted off of the hospital property and told not to return - ever. I was quickly moved to a different room in the off-chance that he managed to sneak back in unnoticed. I was devastated.

I spent the rest of the day on Monday talking to a social worker about the situation, crying most of the time. What was supposed to be such a joyous event turned into something that was gut-wrenching and heartbreaking. Daniel and I were dismissed on Tuesday, and for the second time I left the hospital with a newborn alone and drove myself home. I hoped that he would greet us at the door, happy to see us, taking pictures of Daniel's homecoming. Instead, I walked into the house with our newborn son and found him passed out on the floor of the living room. Here I was, 2 days after delivering our son, walking back and forth across the back yard, bring load after load of stuff in from the van - including everything that I had picked up from WalMart on the way home. And he was passed out drunk.

And so continued our life together. He eventually went through rehab, and stayed sober for 99 days - and life was good. But on the 100th day he made the choice to drink again. He continued to drink until well after I asked him to leave our home permanently on May 6, 2009.

So why am I telling this story in detail now? It's certainly not to badmouth Daniel's father. He was a good man but he had demons that were too strong for him to defeat. I have no doubt that he loved Daniel until the day that he died.

I am telling this now because there are so many details of those few days that people don't know about. I have kept a lot of this to myself for 5 years because I was scared and embarrassed to tell the truth about what happened. But, as we celebrate Daniel's 5th birthday this weekend, it brings so many emotions to the surface for me. For him to have come into this world in the middle of such a messed up set of circumstances, he is an amazing little boy. He is smart and funny and happy and healthy - and he shows me that no matter how horrible the situation is, something wonderful can come out of it. He has taught me more about love and strength than anyone else that I know. I knew that even in the darkest days following his father's death that we would get through it, and that we would get through it together.

He doesn't really remember his father. He recognizes him in pictures, and he tells me that his "daddy died and went to Heaven" but he is still too young to really comprehend what that means. Right now, he knows that his father was sick - and as he gets older he will ask more questions, and I know that those questions will become harder to answer, but we will get through it - just as we have been doing.

We had a little party for him today since the older 3 kids are leaving in the morning. We had cake and ice cream and presents, and The Dude and his mother were here to share in it. He walked around all day today proclaiming that although he is 4 years old today, tomorrow he will be 5!



Tomorrow, he celebrates. And I will continue to reflect on the circumstances that brought him into this world while we celebrate with him - and I won't be scared or embarrassed about it any longer.

Happy Birthday, Jeff

I have debated for days as to whether or not I wanted to even acknowledge this day, for many reasons.

I'm not doing this to create drama. I'm not doing it to hurt anyone. I'm doing it because I feel that I need to - for me - as another step in my own healing. And I need to remember that although our marriage was far from perfect and we had many, many issues, we still had some good times. We were still a family.

These pictures are from Jeff's 44th birthday. August 24, 2008. He wanted a Boston Cream Pie, so I made one for him. We had our own little family party that day.

Today would have been his 47th birthday.

But he's gone.

There are so many things that I want to say, but I just don't know how to put them into words.

I'm still mad at him. I'm mad that he continued to choose alcohol over his family - not just our family, but his family back in Massachusetts. I'm mad that he wasn't strong enough to make better choices. I'm mad that the only choice that I had was to ask him to leave our home for good. I'm mad that he didn't win the battle against alcohol.

But I'm also sad. I miss the man that I saw when he was sober. I miss the good times that we did have. I'm sad that Daniel will grow up without his father, and that my other kids lost a stepfather who they loved with all their hearts.

RIP Jeff
August 24, 1964 - February 2, 2011

An Open Letter to my ExLaws

Dear Family:

Let me start out by saying that I am sorry for the way that things have turned out between us. This is not how I wanted our relationship to be. When I married Jeff, I had visions of the perfect life, the perfect marriage, and the fairy tale ending in my dreams. Sadly, it didn’t turn out that way – at all.

However, there are some things that I need to say to you before any attempt at a "relationship" is made between you and Daniel. Honestly, at this point I am not even sure that I want him to have a relationship with any of you – this is something that I have struggled with for a long time, not just since Jeff's death.

My life, and Daniel's life changed forever on May 6, 2009 when I asked Jeff to leave our home for the last time. So many things happened leading up to that night, and I am quite sure that you know little or nothing about any of them. I'm fairly comfortable saying that I doubt that you know about the majority of the times that I had to call the police to our home because Jeff was in a drunken rage. I doubt that you know about the time that he choked me when I was 6 months pregnant with Daniel, or the time that he knocked me flat on the floor and almost broke my glasses, or the time that he kicked me because I finally figured out that he was hiding the bottles of booze in his boots. I'm assuming that he didn't tell you that the reason that I finally asked him to leave that night was because he was so intoxicated that he had pulled a knife out and was waving it around in front of the kids like a raving lunatic.

I doubt that you know about any of this. Why? Because since May 6, 2009, you haven't asked. You haven't picked up the phone to call and check on the well-being of your grandson. You haven't sent a letter explaining your feelings toward me. You have made no attempt at contact at all. To be brutally honest with you, that pisses me off. As far as I'm concerned, you wrote Daniel out of your lives more than two years ago. You weren’t there for Daniel when we lost our home and were within days of being on the street because Jeff refused to authorize the mortgage company to talk to me. You weren't there for Daniel when we lost the van because Jeff refused to work with me to renew the tags on it.

Jeff always used the excuse that because I had filed the PFA against him (after he threatened to kill me, by the way), no one in his family could contact me. Well, guess what? He left here on May 6, 2009. The PFA wasn't served to him until around mid-December 2009. Where were the phone calls during that 7 months? Where were the letters then? There was no legal reason at that time preventing you from contacting your grandson. YOU CHOSE NOT TO.

Even while the PFA was in effect, there was nothing preventing you from contacting Daniel. NOTHING. One call to me would have confirmed that. One call to the local police department here would have confirmed that. Did you do it? Nope. You chose not to have contact with Daniel. For the record, Jeff's visitation with Daniel was not limited during that time either. The judge informed him during the hearing for the PFA that he could have contact with Daniel ANY TIME HE WANTED TO, but he also chose to ignore him, his own son.

After the PFA expired, it took less than 12 hours for Jeff to call and start harassing me again. Did you call to check on Daniel? Nope. Again, you made the choice to ignore him.

Did you bother to call me and let me know that Jeff was sick? Or that he had been admitted to the hospital? No. Had I known, I might have allowed Daniel to talk to him on the phone one last time. But you robbed both Jeff and Daniel of that chance.

When Mary called to tell me that the family wanted to have a "relationship" with Daniel, I was angry. How could anyone who ignored a beautiful, smart, funny, amazing little boy for 2 years be deserving of having a relationship with him? You don't deserve anything from him. Nothing. He didn't deserve to be written off by his own flesh and blood – he didn't make that choice - you made it for him.

One thing that I don't deserve is the blame for Jeff's death. It is not my fault. I didn't force him to drink bottles upon bottles of booze every week. Yes, alcoholism is a disease and it clouded his thinking, but guess what? There's treatment for the disease – he made the choice to refuse that treatment. Mary informed me that he was in such a "deep, dark depression" because I wouldn't allow him to have contact with Daniel, and that it was that depression ultimately caused his death. What kind of a mother would I be if I allowed my toddler son to have a conversation with someone who was so drunk that his words were slurring? Yes, most of our phone conversations ended by me hanging up on him – but that's because I don't deserve to be spoken to like he did, and I don't have to be subjected to a drunk, either in person or on the phone.

I don't really care what you opinion is of me. You don't have to like me. But you have an amazing grandson here that you have ignored for more than two years. And nothing that you can do can make up for that, and nothing you can say will make me forgive you for it. You can come up with every excuse in the book, and I don't care – the point is that you never made the effort. Distance shouldn't be an issue – in this day and age, family can maintain a relationship from opposite sides of the world, if they choose to do so.

Like I always told Jeff – "it's all about choices". He chose to drink, he chose to refuse treatment, and those choices ultimately led to his death. You made the choice to ignore Daniel. I made the choice to remove myself and my kids from a potentially dangerous situation.

Don't get me wrong – I am absolutely devastated by Jeff's death. I never knew that it was possible to hurt this much, even after more than 3 months. I still loved him, and in a way I still do. I always hoped that he would get the treatment that he needed and that he would once again be the man that I fell in love with, and that we could make another attempt at having a real family again. I never wanted things to turn out the way that they have, but I had to do what I did in order to protect my kids and myself.

Daniel is sitting here on my lap as I type this. He's drawing pictures in a notebook and talking a mile a minute, and every now and then he turns to me and wipes the tears from my face. He has no idea that half of his family has ignored him for the past 2 years, because I haven't told him. He's too little to understand. His life consists of the family and friends who have been here for him without fail, and he is so happy and healthy and well-adjusted and smart because of the positive influences in his life. I refuse to allow negativity into his world right now – he is too young, and he has plenty of time as he gets older to deal with that.

If you are going to be a part of his life, I ask that you respect my feelings. As I said before, I don't expect you to like me or to agree with the decisions that I made, but I ask that you respect them. I did, and continue to do, what I believe is the best for my family. I will not tolerate anyone belittling me (or Jeff) in front of any of my children. I will do anything that I feel that I need to do to protect myself and my kids from any threat or negative influence out there.

It's up to you. If you want to have a healthy, positive relationship with Daniel, I give you my blessing.

Sincerely,
Amy

I Took My Life Back

Today marked a very important anniversary for me. It is almost a birthday of sorts. Two years ago today, I took my life back and reclaimed it for myself.

It started out as a typical day, for the most part. I don't remember anything in particular about the day itself. My husband had been laid off about a month and a half before this and so he had just been pretty much hanging around the house and was drinking anytime he had the chance. I left to go pick up the 3 older kids after school, and I believe that we stopped at the grocery store on the way home, so we were a bit later than he expected us to be.

When I pulled into the driveway, I saw him in the garden. He had his back to us at first, but I could tell just by his posture that he had been drinking. He turned to look at us, and one look at his face confirmed it.

The next thing that I saw was the knife.

There, on his belt, was a sheath with a very large (to me) knife in it. I don't know a lot about types of knives, but I would say that it was similar to a buck knife with a blade that was about 8" long. I was immediately terrified, and tried desperately not to show it. Sarah saw it next, and in her 9-year old innocence asked me why he had it. I told her that I didn't know, and to just go into the house with the other kids.

We all made our way inside. The kids ran, he staggered, and I tried to walk as normally as I could with my knees knocking and my heart pounding. Once we got into the house, he became extremely agitated. The kids were wound up, which was never a good thing to be around him when he was intoxicated. He started yelling at them and at me. I tried to convince him to go back outside and calm down - all I wanted him to do was walk out the back door, give me a few minutes to get the kids to relax, and then he could come back in - but he refused to do so. Sarah started to get really scared and asked him to snap the knife sheath closed - it was hanging open and she was afraid that the knife was going to fall out and hurt someone.

Instead of him snapping the sheath shut, he pulled the knife out and started waving it around his head like a lunatic. The kids panicked and I looked at Sarah and yelled at her to call her father (Ex1) to come and get them - at that point, I knew that there was no turning back. He kept waving the knife around - never directly at anyone, but as agitated as he was it would have only taken a slight wrong move to seriously injure himself, the kids, or me. I kept telling him to put the knife away, and he refused. I told him to go outside and calm down, and he refused. At one point he walked toward the back door and I used that to my advantage - he was not a large guy at all (I outweighed him by about 20 pounds) and I used my body weight and every ounce of strength that I had to push him out of the back door of the house. I slammed the door shut and locked it, then ran to the front door and did the same.

Within minutes, the police were there - thankfully, Ex1 had called them as soon as he got Sarah's call. They questioned my husband, they questioned me, and as much as they wanted to, there wasn't enough to arrest him. I told them everything exactly as it happened - that he never made a direct threat or pointed the knife at anyone, but that I was still terrified that something could have happened. Keep in mind that this was not the first time that they had been called to our house - there had been several instances of violence when he was in a drunken rage, so the officers were familiar with the situation.

I told them that I understood that they couldn't arrest him - that time - but that I just wanted him to leave the house. With the house being in both of our names, they couldn't legally force either one of us to leave, but they did talk to him and strongly encouraged him to disappear for at least the night. The last I saw of him that night was his back as he rode his bike down the street. I found out later that he went to our pastor's house to talk to her, as she called me later and asked if I would pack some clothes and things for him and put it out on the porch so that she could get it for him.

Before the officers left, one of them looked at me and said, "How much longer are you going to put up with this?" He wasn't saying it to be nasty - the tone of his voice showed that he understood the position that I was in at that point. He had been to our house on numerous occasions so he saw the pattern that I had chosen to ignore up until that moment. I looked at him and said, "I'm done." And I meant it.

I was done. I was done with the lies, the drinking, the verbal abuse, the physical abuse, the threats, the name calling...everything. I was done with it. He never spent another night in our house again.

The past two years have been a rollercoaster. For the longest time, I stuck my head in the sand and ignored everything that was falling apart around me. I was in a deep depression, but very few people saw it or understood the depths of it. I look back now and I wonder how I made it through those times, because they were by far the darkest times of my life. There were times that I really questioned whether or not I could go on - but my kids kept me going.

When I was finally able to file for the divorce, it was a feeling of relief. I feel horrible saying that now, but it really was. I needed to take that next step in the reclaiming of my life. I celebrated when it was final, because I could finally feel the control coming back to me. When he died 20 days later, I went through every emotion in the book.

I still struggle. Life isn't easy - at all. But now, 2 years after I made the decision to take my life back, I truly feel that I am in control of what happens to me. This is MY life - and I can do what I want to do with it. I don't have to answer to him or anyone else. I can and will do what needs to be done to take care of myself and my kids.

I spent the day at my friends' house, working in the garden. My friend took the boys with him while he ran errands, so I had close to 5 hours of quality time to myself - I planted seeds and enjoyed the feel of the sun on my face and the wind on on my skin and just reflected on everything that has happened over the past two years. For the first time in a very long time, I can honestly say that I'm happy with where I am.

I took the kids out for supper tonight - mainly because I'm too tired and sunburned to cook - and caught this shot on the way home...

It just seemed peaceful - something that I am finally feeling for myself.

He didn't make it.

And with those four little words, my entire world turned upside down.

Some of you know, but most of you don't. I found out yesterday that my ex-husband (the second one) was taken to the hospital by ambulance. Through a series of messages today, I found out that his condition had deteriorated quickly - multiple organs were failing and he was on a ventilator. I packed up the kids and we went to our friends' house to hang out, because I didn't want to be at home alone when I got the word. At about 7:30pm my time I received another message - "He didn't make it." I looked at my phone and couldn't breathe. I handed the phone to my friends so that they could see the message too, and I lost it. Completely and totally lost it.

Our marriage was not a fairy tale story by any stretch of the imagination. We met online, we rushed into a relationship and we rushed into a marriage. We both had our demons - his was alcohol - but we tried to work past them. There were numerous times when the police were called to our home because the drinking had gotten out of hand, and he did a stint in rehab, but the lure of the alcohol was always too strong.

Kicking him out for the final time was the hardest thing that I have ever done in my life, but I had to protect myself and my kids. Since that time, I have had very little contact with him. I have not seen him in over a year and a half, and he has not seen our son in that long either.

I told my girls about him being in the hospital first. I knew that I had to tell them - to prepare them - because I wasn't sure how I was going to react when I found out that he was gone. They were devastated. So they knew as soon as I broke down at our friends' house what had happened. I waited until we got home to tell my 6 year old. He didn't fully grasp it, and I didn't expect him to. I haven't told my 5 year old yet, and I haven't told our son.

I have gone through a complete rollercoaster of emotions today. I am pissed off at him - I don't know what the official cause of death was, but I'm quite sure that alcohol played a part in it. Why couldn't he just stop drinking? Why was booze so damned important to him that he gave up his LIFE for it? I am sad that our son will never know his father. He was not quite 2 years old when he left, and doesn't even ask about him. He has never asked me why he didn't have a daddy in his life, and now when he does, I have to tell him that his daddy is dead. I am devastated because even though our marriage wasn't perfect, I still believed that deep down inside, there was a good man trying to get out. I still had that tiny little glimmer of hope that at some point, he would get the help that he needed and become a father to our son, even if from a distance.

Now, any hope is gone. He is gone. I didn't expect to feel this many emotions. I didn't expect to have this horrible pain in my chest and the knot in my stomach and the eyes that are almost swollen shut from crying. Our divorce was just final 20 days ago, and I thought that the emotional rollercoaster was over. Sadly, I think I just got back on for another ride.

I know that we will get through this. I know that we will be fine. But right now, I am hurting. I think I am hurting more than I ever have before. Not only am I still mourning the end of our marriage, but now I am mourning the death of a man with whom I was once crazy in love.