A Thousand Oceans

I love water. Water finds a way. It waits, it changes, it finds new paths. It can get through anything.

I love the ocean. Any ocean. It just has so much patience. Storms don't frighten it. It never stops being what it is. It can't.

Tori Amos once wrote a beautiful song called 1000 Oceans. I recommend looking it up on YouTube sometime - perhaps when something or someone you love has been taken from you. It kind of says it all, when you are truly grieving. Try and listen to it on a rainy day, if possible. Alone. And shivering in the cold. Hell, try it naked and get really pathetic. It will certainly add to your overall experience. I mean, when you are devastated, you just can't listen to happy music. It needs to be as damn sad as it can damn well be.

Two and a half years ago, I was a mother of two sons. We were really happy, actually. We were a family. We laughed a lot. They were everything to me. Then suddenly, I wasn't a mother. They left. Or were taken, depending on your point of view. That's what "mam i ddau o fechgyn" means. It's Welsh. Even if you suddenly aren't a mother of two sons, anymore. It means, "mother of two sons". I'm Welsh, so when I want to express a meaningful phrase, I look it up in Welsh and it's always rather eloquent. Thanks for that, Wales. So yeah, I like to pretend that I am still a mother of two sons. Sometimes I even believe it.

Note: I don't live in Wales. I live in Canada. Being Welsh-Canadian is nice. The aim here is to always be accurate.

Two and half years ago, I was divorced. Sharing the kids 50/50. Week on, week off. It wasn't perfect, but it worked, for 7 years. I was working 3 jobs and trying to raise my lovely teenage boys with affection and values. Then - out of nowhere - they were gone. It was the greatest shock of my life. I had thought their recent emotional withdrawal from me was just some typical adolescent angst. A phase. I mean, I teach middle school, and I'm pretty good at it. So I was used to it. Right? But I didn't know. I just didn't know at all. How are you supposed to know, when you are being betrayed, behind your back, for almost a year? How? You can't. It's not a reasonable thought.

Their father had met someone. He wanted to move to her city. But he didn't want to leave the boys with me. Too long of a drive for him. Inconvenient. He also knew I would finally insist on some child support. Nothing just wasn't enough to survive on anymore. But his mother is his income. Some massive trust fund thing. She wouldn't want "her" money going to the ex-wife. The bitch, they had been calling me. The psycho. I didn't know about any of that. I thought he was still playing fair. But I was naive.

Their father is very clever. He is also very charming. I remember that from when we were married. He came up with a plan. He spent almost a year working on it. Very subtle, but very effective. He developed lies about me; I was a slut. A thief. A drunk. A bitch. A psycho. Oh sons, it so hurts me to have to tell you this. He spent a whole year. Making them promises, if they agreed to move. Making them hate me. Making them hate my boyfriend, whom they had adored, calling him a bum, a fag, a loser. Making them really, really believe. He took a grain of truth and slathered it with fallacy. He left holes for them to fill in on their own and did not correct them when it was untrue. I know he did this because I've seen him do it before. He's proud of this talent. He often calls himself a "context changer"; it's on his business website. So he skilfully changed everything about me that was true, using context and spin. Oh but sons, don't tell her that you know. She's a drunk. She's mentally ill. She's a whore. You don't know what she'll do, if she finds out that YOU want to move away. We are all afraid of her.

I have lots of money, he said. You can have it, if you come with me. She's poor. She has to work all the time. But I have money, he said (He doesn't. It's his mother's money. Actually, I suspect his mother is the reason he is the way he is. That, and all that money. Money changes people, sometimes. Large amounts of it, anyway).

Then. It all happened over one week. Two and a half years ago, with no warning, my oldest son left. Just walked away. A few days later, so did his brother. His father picked him up. They left their rooms, their clothes, their furniture, their video games. Everything. My youngest left the guitar my boyfriend had bought him. My oldest left the drum kit. They left us. Me, their mother. They didn't want to talk. They were just. Gone.

I cannot describe what that hideous reality feels like.

I went to Family & Children's Services. They are old enough to decide for themselves, they said. Interesting how this happened the very week your oldest son turned sixteen, but here, your ex says that you sometimes yell? Here are some parenting pamphlets. Good luck. I went to the police. Your domestic violence case is too old, they said. It's not a slam-dunk. We're really sorry. Good luck. I called his family. They told me they couldn't help. The family money situation would become too complicated. We can't upset his mother. She controls the money. Good luck.

I got a lawyer. He was awesome. Their father hates him. But ultimately, there was nothing the legal system could do. It's all "trips around the sun", he said. Your sons have made enough trips around the sun. They're too old for the courts to intervene. I'm so sorry, he said. He was tough, honest, and kind. I can never thank him enough.

I called everyone I thought their father knew. He wasn't at the same job. His friends lied for him. My own sons wouldn't return my calls or emails or texts. Leave us alone, they said. Dad says you are a whore, he says you are a drunk. I was terrified. There are no words for this kind of helpless desperation. I learned his father had cancelled the insurance we had in place for them, should anything happen to either of us. I discovered that he was engaged. He was moving them away. An hour away.

I cried my heart out. Every single day. I went to sleep crying. I woke up crying. I cried at work, in the washroom. I went on anti-depressants. I gained 30 pounds. That didn't exactly help my self-esteem. I stopped the anti-depressants. I go running now. The weight is slowly coming off.

I think if I actually was a drunk, I'd maybe have started drinking. A lot. Gotten in trouble at work, maybe. Possibly a DUI. Luckily, I only have wine with dinner, and a cooler or two on the weekends. So that didn't happen. Because I am not a drunk.

One day, a few months after they left, their father showed up with them unannounced and they came in and gathered a few things. They wouldn't speak to me. I burst into tears. I saw him smiling in his car across the road, chatting on his cell phone. I screamed at him from my front doorstep. My boyfriend pulled me back inside. My boys didn't seem to care. They couldn't look at me. They weren't acting like themselves. They each left with an armful of things and a mess for me to clean up. Their father drove them away in his car, laughing. I went inside the house and vomited. My boyfriend stopped leaving me alone, for a long time after that. I couldn't be alone in that house anymore. I would began to shake and have anxiety attacks. He started having people come over to be with me while he was at work. They were incredibly helpful to us that first year.

Counseling helped me keep it together at work. My counselor says I am incredibly mentally healthy and emotionally very strong. Interesting how "psycho" is what their father had come up with, in order to malign my character. My counselor believes he had to attack my mental health, because it's the strongest part about me. Look up any definition of parental alienation. That's what they do. But I digress. My point is, I am not a psycho.

A few months later, though, I sold that house. I couldn't handle their empty bedrooms. The empty chairs at the kitchen table taunted me. I gave away the trampoline, and except for two boxes of what I believe they might want back some day, I donated their belongings to needy kids at my school. We live in a rented place right now. Their boxes are stored in a hallway closet.

I think if I was a slut, my relationship with my boyfriend would have suffered, due to the stress causing me to return to my legendary slutty ways. Instead, he asked me to marry him. And I did, a few months ago. More about that later. I am not a whore. It's something I have never been accused of before this. It's a pretty disgusting thing to say to two teenage boys about their mother.

Mother of two sons. Mam i ddau o fechgyn. It's what I used to be. My whole life is different now. I have had to redefine my entire identity. When you are a mother, that is such a huge part of you. Who are you, when it is suddenly taken away? But I am now starting to fight for the ability to still call myself that. I was a mother. I am a mother. I gave birth to two boys. I am covered in stretch marks. I breastfed them with my body for 10 months. I read them stories, I sang them songs. I took them to the doctor. I went to parent-teacher interviews. I threw them birthday parties. I worked really hard to be the mother they deserved.

This blog has begun today, because two and half years have now gone by since their father drove my two sons away from me, laughing. I never hear from them. They refused to attend my mother's funeral. They say I am a drunk, a whore, a liar.

I'm not. What I am is an imperfect, loving, ordinary human being.

I am no longer a mother. Not the way I was. Experts tell me this is a classic case of Parental Alienation. I know it's true. It doesn't help, though. There is a hole in my chest. It's hard to describe. But it literally feels like my heart is broken. Physically damaged. A bomb went off, and changed us all. All I know is, I was a once a mother. A very good one. But now, my sons are gone. It wasn't their fault. Not one bit. I wish they'd been allowed to give me a chance. Maybe tried to ask my side of the story. Not thrown me away, like a piece of garbage. I would have dealt with the move. I would have called, and visited. I would gone to their school events. I know I would have played nice. I would have done anything, to avoid this.

People keep telling me they will come back one day. I don't know about that. But if they do, I want them to return to a strong, happy, loving woman. So I have to survive this. I have to get through this. For them. And for me. Because I am not a piece of garbage. I'm a good person. I have a loving husband, kind friends, and a great job teaching other people's kids. My friends say that what has happened here is a crime. They know I grieve for my boys every day. But I am slowly getting stronger. And I'm learning to accept happiness as part of my life again. My husband is wonderful to me. I simply could not get through this without him.

I never talk about it. Not at work, with my colleagues. Not with my friends. It's too ugly, and unreal. I listen to them talk about their kids and I smile for them. Counseling just leaves me exhausted, so I have now stopped going. But I am still living this. So, I guess it's time. A blog. A diary. Maybe one day, my boys will be able to read this and see how much I missed them. Worried about them. Hoped they were okay. Not in any way to make them feel guilty, just so that they can know that I never, ever stopped loving them. Not for one minute. I can wait for them. I can wait for them for the rest of my life. I love them. They are my sons.

I am the mother of two sons.
I am the mother of two sons.

Mam i ddau o fechgyn.