I don't necessarily think it's selfish of me to want my children to be a part of my life. I love them. I love them more than anything or anybody. I would die for either of them, no question.
Sometimes you have to face a reality that really hurts. No matter how much you want to go on holding out hope that everything will be ok, that someday normalcy will return, that the phone is going to ring or there will be an email or a knock on the door and there will be tears and hugging and that the relationship, in some form, will resume. You want to believe that somehow, everything will be better, that there will be healing.
Sometimes, though, you have to realize, and especially as a parent, that what you want is not as important as what is best for your child, and that further, what you think is best is irrelevant. That may be the hardest part about being a parent, knowing that you can be (and often are) wrong. If my daughter has determined that the best thing for her is to not have her family in her life, to not have me in her life, then I have to accept that. Because if I really and truly want what is best for her then she has to decide what that is. Much like the whole "don't you want grandchildren" thing I hear all the time, I am not qualified to tell anyone else how to live their life. No matter how much it hurts.
At some point I'll come out of this shadow I've been living in. This may be an important step in that, it may not be. I will always and eternally love my daughters and I will never close the door on either of them, but I have to accept that a decision they make is none of my business and let it go.
2 comments:
I have just recently found your blog. My heart breaks for you having to deal with such a difficult situation. It is very painful to watch our kids struggle and I can feel your pain having your daughter cut you out. I was in a similar situation with my son but thankfully it seems to be resolving itself.
Hugs to you.
Followed you over from your insightful comment on IBTP & this struck me like an arrow in the heart.
After a contentious divorce & custody battle (in which abusive ex got everything he asked for, short of full custody), I grieve for the great swaths of my son's childhood that I've missed as well as all the great travel & family experiences I cannot share w/him under the rigors of current visitation schedule. (For years I was breathlessly waiting for age 12, when Z might get a say in things - but then state of TX erased that distinction; it's as if children don't grow a brain until age 18)
Sorry for rattling on so, but I fear a similar outcome when my son is grown - he'll want to get as far away from the crucible as possible.
Best wishes, Val
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