I wanted nothing more
in life than to be a mother and have a family. After one failed marriage under
my belt (8 years together) and the realization that I would never have children
of my own found me in great despair in May 2002. I wound up in the psych ward
after learning my first husband was having a baby with another woman and we had
only been legally divorced for a month. I was so distraught and jealous and
monumentally wounded that the love of my life at that point was having a child
with someone else. I had always hoped it was not only just me that couldn’t but
maybe, just maybe he couldn’t either and that was ok with him and me, but his
mother felt emphatically the opposite.
This hospital stay, I
met Luis. Luis was a veteran who was just returned from fighting in Bosnia but
was hospitalized because his wife of 9 years, left he and their two young
children for good. Giovanni was 5 and Nina was 3. She had not really been apart
of their lives much in the role of mother their entire lives, but made it
official, she was OUT in May 2002. Same month as my realization that I wouldn’t
be a mother. He was a dad left with two children and no mother… PERFECT,
RIGHT???!!!! It seemed pretty perfect. It ended up being a challenge, raising
someone else’s children, them depending on you for everything, calling me mom,
but I loved every moment of it. I can remember Giovanni and his little sweet 5
year old voice asking me on the phone when he was in Texas with Luis’ parents
(where they spent 90% of their lives at that point because their mother always
shipped them to his parents and Luis was always deployed overseas) if I was
going to marry his dad, if I was going to be he and Nina’s step-mom, if he
could call me Mom? I asked him; do you want me to? His reply was yes! And from
that point on I was Mom, for the next 11 years. I’ve been gone from them since
August 2013. My heart aches for the way our lives used to be. The holidays, the
birthdays, the milestones, girlscouts, baseball, basketball, drama, hockey, the
flu, home sick, home schooling, brushing teeth, getting ready for bed, school,
homework, first period, the hug, the kisses, the I love u's, braces, boobs, mustaches, breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks,
being snowed in, first girl friends, sleep overs, snow days, vacations, adventures,
our animals, Vinnie, Lola, Lucy and Chloe, HOME. I miss it all soooo terribly.
I cannot describe to you the level of loss. It’s immeasurable. But home is a
state of mind, right? That’s what I’ve heard. I’ve also heard it’s where the
heart is. I believe both to be true. Like Luther Vandross’ A House is Not a
Home. JUST EMPTY!
These are some of the
casualties of war.
Luis now sits in a 600k
dollar home with a $3,000 mortgage, on Workers Compensation alone in the ruins
of what was once our refuge. Everything personal is gone, everything sold, all
the pictures put away, the wall collages of our life in boxes. He is alone in
his world and I alone in mine. I have No relationship with any family or
friends from that time in my life. NONE! NOT ONE FUCKING PERSON! I am on Social
Security Disability living 2500 miles from “home” where I KNOW NO ONE AND HAVE
NO FUCKING SUPPORT OR HELP, I have no one to care for anymore, no one to look after, not even an animal. Trying to stay alive physically and mentally. Trying
to get to this place where I can breathe without the disparaging feeling in my
chest and throat, where I can’t swallow and I cry sooo hard I feel things pop
in my head, like flashes of lightning. Where my crying makes me puke or dry
heave depending on weather I have eaten, which hasn’t been that often the last
few weeks. Just franticly trying to find the fucking answers. I thought the
answer was to disconnect from people. People only hurt, that is what I have
convinced myself of, it is my armor; it is my defense and offense. I am better
off alone, for the majority of my time, but this isolation from human beings,
basic human contact, a hug a kiss a smile being able to look at someone, anyone
in the eye and feel loved… haven’t had that in what feels like an eternity. I
really don’t trust anyone wholly and completely. I have my reservations about
everyone and everything. I am skeptical and doubtful of anyone and their “word”.
I have been abandoned and hurt by all I have loved and my soul annihilated,
like the target of a 107 rocket. OBLITERATED! Now to OBLITERATE all these
feelings and HEAL!
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