I have no pictures to post with this entry.
I only have shame and regret.
When I met my now husband 22 years ago he told me shortly after we started dating that he had a son. We spent time with him and even had him for a month shortly before we got married. He was at our wedding. I have a picture of him and I at our wedding. He was 4 or 5 at the time. Blond hair and looked exactly like my husband.
Visits became less frequent and a couple years later when his mom married, she asked that my husband let his step dad adopt him.
We agreed.
We felt like Matt could give him the stability that we had not. We could barely take care of ourselves much less another person.
Mistake number 1. Even though we both still think we did what was best, I still regret it.
We continued to be stupid by not staying in touch with him. He never came to stay with us when we lived on Red Bud Rd. He came to meet Ashton when he was born and didn't see him again until Ashton was 7 years old.
Mistake number 2
We absolutely dropped the ball on this boys life. We left his life without thinking it through.
Now that little boy is still a beautiful guy, except he's 25. He's also a father to a newborn girl named Rose. She was just born yesterday.
He allowed us to come see them at the hospital. It wasn't the reunion I had hoped for and it stung when I noticed that we were plunked in the "other" time frame for people visiting. "Other" is for friends, coworkers and acquaintance-- people not really that important. It stung but I expected it and I totally understand it.
I've been feeling horrible since. I deserve it. I keep picturing what our lives would look like if we hadn't been so selfish and immature. I would have 2 boys to look out for me. Jared would have Ashton. Ashton would have Jared. I did to Jared what my dad did to me. I'm 45 and I'm still dealing with the pain of my dad not paying attention to me.
The only good thing is that we've basically been consistent with being gone. There wasn't any confusion and life "drop ins". No visits that said You're visiting but you really don't belong here.
The perfectionist in me wants to wrap it all up in a pretty bow, tell him how sorry we are and have him say oh that's OK- hug like a 80's sitcom and live happily ever after.
But that's not reality is it?
There's no amount of money that can fix it. There's no amount of tears or letters or gifts that will fix what we did to him. Something he never asked for or deserved.
He deserved us to love on him and make him a part of our family. Yes, we could have still had Matt adopt him but still have him be a part of our family.
I missed birthdays, trips, game nights, movie nights, corn mazes, Christmas celebrations, Winter Wonderlands--proms, graduation-- and I'm sure frustrations. I missed out on having 2 sons. My son missed out on a brother. He missed out on an annoying little brother. I'm missing out on a grand-daughter.
How arrogant and narcissistic of me to think that I could just roll in after all this time and claim her as my granddaughter.
There's nothing, literally nothing that I can do - or anybody can do to give us back that time we missed.
The only thing I can do is move forward and make a commitment --- and hope and pray that maybe someday he can forgive us. That maybe we can be a family. Forgiveness won't give me back all the hugs and time we missed but maybe we can heal.
Now that he's an adult and parent he can decide what he wants. No longer a child he can use his critical thinking to determine what he wants.
Maybe we'll get a chance to apologize to him -- or at least me. I need to do this.
He deserves to know how much I regret our selfish decision.
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