The Holidays

Not by my choice, I have a lot of family that doesn't seem to have time for me unless they need something. so I do my best to appreciate the friends who try to fill those empty places in my life. I grew up with my dad's extended family and loved Thanksgiving and Christmas. For most of the past twelve years, I have grieved my way through those two holidays and the period between them. I had Thanksgiving dinner this year with George and Bill and was just grateful I wasn't alone, but managed this ONLY with the addition of a sedative to my usual "happy pills".

Apparently my leaving an abusive marriage 12+ years ago has cost me the right to my sons' time during holidays, and frankly, this is one of those times I almost wish I'd just stayed and let the beatings and rape continue. At least I wouldn't have to scramble for manufactured "family". Anyone who glibly tells a battered woman (especially with childen) "Just LEAVE! You'll be FINE!!" doesn't have a CLUE about the realities that one act causes. I've been accused of abandoning my sons and of being a loose woman and bat-sh*t crazy. Please tell me how this is really a GOOD thing, because at the moment, I'm not seeing it.

It turns out i wasn't just giving up the right to be abused, beaten, raped, and publicly humiliated; apparently I also unwittingly was giving up my rights to be included in family plans for holidays or any other time. 

My sister, who has now decided she is a "he", was always a butch lesbian, and I remember having to dig in my heels to get the children's sperm donor to allow our middle son, Tyler, to spend a few weeks with her in Boston, along with her "life partner" and the partner's kids in the summer before 6th grade. Believe me, this didn't go over well with my mother or the children's father, who had nothing good to say about the potential harm this could do to Tyler. I maintained it was hogwash and insisted he be allowed to go. I think for the most part, i made the right decision. The only thing I didn't count on was that after my divorce, that sister would help the ex get sole custody of the boys from me and signed over to their father. Now Tyler has migrated to Boston to be near "Uncle Miles". I don't give a rat's rear end what someone's gender identity or sexual preference is, and have always defended folks' right to be who they are, but for that person to believe she/he has the right  to interfere in my rights as a parent and teach my sons not to love me is beyond ironic. 

Since the children's sperm donor got custody of them, I have seen Joel ONE TIME in 11 years. Please understand I was given unlimited, unsupervised visitation - which was set up in such a way as to be punitive. A judge from the Arkansas Judicial Disciplinary Commission said it was clearly punitive and one of the absolute worst calls he'd seen in his entire career, but i couldn't afford to appeal the decision. So I'll pay for the rest of my life. The boys' father refused to allow me to exercise my right to visit Joel unless a whole bunch of people were there to supervise and make sure Joel and I didn't have any real, heartfelt conversation. I offered to get the Magnolia, Arkansas youth officer, Ronnie Bell, to be the third party and visit Joel at the police station, but the ex refused to allow it. The police wouldn't do anything about it because it was a "civil" matter. (I've been paying child support since that time and still am). Please tell me how this has turned out okay.

When Tyler moved to Boston in the fall, I asked him to please plan to spend Thanksgiving with me. Haven't heard a word from him. Eric and Stephanie have begun a tradition of having a big "Army Family" Thanksgiving get-together for all their friends from Eric's time in the Army. I think that's *great*, but feel that now I've outlived my usefulness, I'm supposed to just fade to grey, and it hurts. A lot.

The Great Turkey Escape

Happy Thanksgiving. I was awake at 5 a.m., lying in the dark, tears streaming down my face. Yesterday was pretty rough and today is going to be the same. One more "I'm so thankful for..." post and I may throw up. 

From the time I was in third grade, we lived at the opposite end of my Childs grandparents' farm, about 3/4 of a mile from their house. A long gravel lane extended from our house to theirs. The first half mile or so was pretty flat, then climbed steadily up a pretty steep hill (by Columbia County standards) to their house. 

My mother viewed Thanksgiving morning as a golden opportunity to have the household staff (her oldest three children) perform several hours of drudge work around the house, seeing as how God had failed to provide her with paid household staff and she was much too pretty to clean her own house, although she firmly believed a house should be kept in a state resembling a spread from House Beautiful Magazine. 

Our mother wasn't big on cooking, so thankfully our daddy fed us until I was old enough to cook. (That was a young age around our house back then. I could prepare a full meal by the time I was 8.) This meant she wasn't asked to cook or host Thanksgiving or any other big meals throughout the year. It was in the best interest of all involved.

Because she was a serious TV addict, our daddy felt behooved to toss out the TV when I was 3. Otherwise, we'd have wandered away and drowned in the pond while she watched soap operas, obvlivious to our existence. Seriously. So TV was a huge thing, especially with the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade about to air.

My siblings and I figured out by the time I was in junior high that this half-day festival of cleaning the Bodie plantationwas going to happen every Thanksgiving morning without fail, so when I was in eighth grade, we spontaneously produced and directed "The Great Turkey Escape". 

We woke up at the crack of dawn, made our beds, got dressed, brushed our teeth, and left a note that looked something like a playbill. It read "The Great Turkey Escape". Below, I wrote "Written by Laurie Childs. Produced by Cyndi Childs. Directed by Mac Childs, Jr.", after which I wrote a brief explanation of how the Thanksgiving turkeys were fleeing for their lives this Thanksgiving morning and would be seeking refuge at the home of their grandparents at the other end of the farm. Then just about the time it got light enough to see safely, we put on our coats and shoes and quietly left the house and headed up the frost-laced lane to our grandparents' home.

My grandmother always seemed to enjoy teaching me to cook and having me help in the kitchen when she prepared meals. Yes, it meant working but it also meant being loved and taught and nurtured and appreciated. That wasn't the sort of thing working for my mother included, so I worked my hardest to learn and help. Funny how that works.

The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade would start long after we'd begun cooking, so I could watch it unfold from the kitchen pass-through, occasionally taking breaks to sit in front of the TV, amazed at the floats, enjoying the marching bands. The smells were wonderful, and the feeling I was loved and appreciated made me more thankful than anything possibly could have. My siblings sat in front of the TV and did pretty much nothing, but I didn't care. I was doing what I loved with a woman who loved me.

Every Thanksgiving until I was out of high school, my siblings and I repeated the Great Turkey Escape. Every year our dad made sure she was distracted long enough for us to reach safe haven, and every year, our mother was really, really unhappy about it, and we heard about it in no uncertain terms, but it was worth it.

After the parents made their way up to the big house, we sat down to a wonderful, Southern-style Thanksgiving dinner. In addition to uncles and aunts and cousins and grandparents, there were always guests - single or widowed professors from the college, along with any student who had stayed on campus for the long weekend. Everyone was welcome and everyone acted accordingly. It was wonderful and warm and makes my current childless, relative-less situation all the more lonely. 

I'm having Thanksgiving lunch at a restaurant today with my ex, George, and with Bill Dugan. I'm thankful I'm not totally alone.