Another Un-Anniversary

My former wedding anniversary came and went. I thought of my ex-husband on that day, July 14, not realizing it was our anniversary. I had been thinking, "I will text him and plead with him to help me see the kids." I didn't text him because I knew in my heart that if I got any response at all, it would be negative. And later on toward the evening I realized it was our anniversary.

I keep thinking that there must be something I can do to change this. That somehow I can change the fact that it has been four years now since I have laid eyes on my children. That I can turn back the clock and get those years back with them. I have had a huge hole in my heart. And I am convinced that they have needed their mother. Then I wonder, is there some major life lesson here that I am supposed to learn? That my kids are supposed to learn? My ex?

I looked at a picture of my daughter today. It was a photo of her around the time that I saw her last. She has large dark eyes, thick hair, a dimple to the side of her cheek. She is beautiful. I looked carefully. Did she look like a child with an unstable family life? Did she appear as though she knew she was loved?

I saw a recent picture of my middle son. (Because I look for my kids online all the time.) He looks a lot like his father. He has a bit of a mustache. I don't know that I would recognize him in a crowd. He is tall and thin, and his hair is styled in a sort-of rockabilly way like his dad's.

I felt betrayed seeing the photograph.. I had missed the transition from child to adult completely. My son went from stocky, cuddly and cute, to a tall thin man with a mustache and deep voice. My child is gone.

My ex-husband moved with our three children. Where--I don't know. It was conincidence I knew where they were living the past year anyway. I am supposed to know where they are living--according to the courts. We have shared legal custody so I am supposed to know alot of things. So many things the courts decreed that were not imposed, and my ex-husband simply did not do. Such as pay the mortgage payment. Give me my half of the tax return. Go to family law court to decide child custody. Take the kids to reunification therapy. Sell the house. Abide by shared legal custody of the children. Pay spousal support. And on and on.

He is remarried now. He got married ten months after we divorced to a woman more than twenty years his junior. Our oldest son is 19 and a half. My ex-husband's wife just turned twenty-five. My ex-husband is forty-five.

He did not tell me any of this. I saw it on facebook before he changed his account to private. I also saw their child who was born while we were still married. There were pictures of his son, named Skyler, at around two and a half years old. He was the spitting image of my middle son at that age. At first I thought they were pictures of my son Keegan, except they were labeled "Skyler," and the child was in surroundings I didn't recognize. By the ages posted I realized Skyler was conceived and born several years before my ex and I separated. My ex maintains his new wife had Skyler before they got together and that Skyler was "her" child. The resemblance to Keegan is uncanny. As a mother, I would have told you that Skyler was my child.

While we were still in the process of getting a divorce, one by one my children moved in with their father. Initially, he refused to tell me where they lived or give me thier address. I still had an attorney and she managed to get this information from his attorney. But after our divorce was final I was shit out of luck. I was out of money and my ex-husband refused to comply with any of the settlement stipulations--and having no money and no access to money, I have been powerless to change this. By coincidence (or not) I happened to see his wife driving one day--she was driving my ex mother-inlaws mustang that was suppossed to be a first car for my kids.) I followed her and she led me to their house.

Every now and then I'd drive by there hoping for a glance of my children, and comforted that at least I knew where they were.

The other day, after my son Keegan's birthday, I drove by and the house was completely vacant. It loooked like it had been empty awhile. The windows were bare, there was trash in the front yard,the grass was yellow, full of weeds and about a foot high. I instantly panicked--where were my kids? And I don't know. To me, they are lost.