Fall Out (Letting Go Part 3)

This was written in the fall of 2007.  I just found it on an old online journal today.  I was struggling to cope with the idea of losing Ash when she moved to live with her biological mom.  Now, four years later, I'm struggling with many of the same feelings all over again as Melissa is keeping us from our visits. 

Dan and I went to court on November 5^th. The judge gave us a week to prepare a list of witnesses and documents for his ex wife’s attorney, and he gave us 30 days to find an attorney of our own. Even allowing all of this, the hearing was still scheduled for December 13^th so that Ashlynn could be moved over Christmas break if we lost. Merry Christmas for them. Not such a merry Christmas for us. I spent the rest of the week gathering the documents we needed and trying to contact attorneys in Hays. Unfortunately, in such a small town, everyone kept referring us back to the firm that she was working with. Again, not very reassuring for us.

If you have ever dealt with attorneys much, you learn very quickly that they are the hardest people on the planet to actually get in touch with. I used to have a job that consisted primarily of contacting attorneys and connecting them up with potential clients. I got to be pretty good at it, knowing what attorneys in what areas of the state would handle what types of cases, etc. But I also got pretty good at knowing who I could expect to hear back from and who I could forget about if I had to leave a message. I wasn’t too surprised to speak with one attorney, set a phone conference in a two weeks with another and I still haven’t heard back from the third attorney I tried to contact. Our plan was to try to get a change of venue, and from there we could get legal assistance closer to home.

We started discussing the options that we would have if we couldn’t find an attorney, and what our odds actually were of keeping our daughter. One day, I asked Dan if it would be better for Ash if we just gave up now, before court. That would keep her from the stress of it and we wouldn’t all be going through this year after year until we finally lost. We are in a mommy state, so no matter what we have done for Ash or how little Melissa has done, at some point, we will lose. Dan had already been thinking along those same lines. I think that we were both afraid to say it out loud.

We came to our decision on Tuesday night. It was pretty tentative. We were still looking for anything that might suggest to us that this was the wrong way to go. I think I can kind of understand how Abraham must have felt when God told him to sacrifice his son, Isaac. We kept looking and listening for that ram, but I guess they were out of season. I am finally beginning to feel as if this might not be an actual sacrifice, but I am terrified none the less. I’m not very good at faith. I want to believe that if God has forced this choice upon us, that He is going to protect our little girl. I hope He is going to be looking out for her because I don’t trust Melissa to do it. Maybe that is sacrilegious or maybe I’m just a lousy Christian. Probably a little bit of both. Part of me can’t believe that God’s really looking out for Ashlynn, because if He was, wouldn’t He have helped Melissa realize what she has been doing to Ash for the last five and a half years? Wouldn’t He have helped her to see that she has to put her kids’ needs before her own? Wouldn’t He have shown her that instead of being angry at me for being a mom to Ash, she should be thanking me for being a mom when she wasn’t ready to do it herself? If He wouldn’t do that, how can I trust that he’s going to watch out for Ashie now?

Dan has more faith than I do. He doesn’t have faith in God, exactly. He has faith that the world is inherently good and things will turn out for the best. He doesn’t really have a structured belief in God, but then, not a lot about Dan is structured. If you ask him what he thinks, he will tell you that he doesn’t really think about God. He figures someone is out there, but he doesn’t really seem to care one way or another. It’s all very odd to me. I can’t completely relate to this concept. I believe in God. I believe that he’s there. I’ve always believed that He can work miracles. I think I was one. I think my kids are. But I don’t understand how He decides when to act and when to watch or when to just ignore us all. Is He really helping us? I have a friend who told me once that she believes that God helped us all that He is going to at conception. She felt that by giving us each the talents and family that we were born with, He has provided us with the tools we need for life and we are on our own. Others have told me that God has a path laid out for each of us to take, but that we may never end up where He wants us to be because we have plenty of opportunities to mess it all up and go the wrong way. They tell me that He will guide us back to that path if we are listening and will help us get where we need to be if we ask. But with billions of souls on Earth alone, why would He listen to me? And if the answer to my prayer is that He’s going to let me figure it out on my own so I can be stronger, why should I pray in the first place? And if He’s not listening, am I just going crazy talking to myself?

So, I have had a lot of thoughts playing bumper cars inside my brain, and I don’t think they were all wearing the required safety harnesses. Some of them got a bit carried away and I started to get a little edgy. Dan was apparently experiencing a similar sort of thing and by the Monday after we made our decision, three days before Thanksgiving, we were not getting along so well. Dan’s momma was in town for Payton’s birthday on the 16^th and Dan’s on the 25^th and she took us out to a lovely dinner at Olive Garden. We followed that up by going bowling. Dan and I got into a large and completely ridiculous argument. He followed this up by ignoring my frustrations, which, of course, only added to them. By the time we returned home that night, I didn’t want to talk to him anymore. When he wanted to get all snuggly, I wanted to yell at him. I didn’t yell, but I did point out that ignoring me when I am angry was not going to help the situation. He pointed out that he thought I was being childish to be upset in the first place. We calmly went on for a bit before we got down to the real truth. We weren’t arguing about bowling. DUH! We were just venting our frustrations over the situation. We were both scared that we were making a wrong decision and that day I had finally called Melissa to discuss the decision with her. To her credit, she sounded as if she was excited but trying to stay calm on the phone. She has been extra nice since then, but who is to say whether that is because she is sympathetic to how we are feeling or because she doesn’t want us to change our minds. Anyway, Dan and I really talked about how we were feeling and got back to where we should have been in the first place. I told Dan that I am having a hard enough time dealing with this, I can’t do it without him. I need to be on his side. He told me that he can’t lose me. He said that I am all he has. It still makes me so sad to remember how he said that. He told me that he got on his momma’s nerves because he kept calling her Ericka all day. His best friend since high school, one of the big reasons we moved here in the first place, really hasn’t had much to do with us since we had Olivia. We chat when we run into each other in the parking lot, but that’s about it. I told him that I want to be his best friend, but I don’t want to be his only friend. He doesn’t really have anyone else that he feels like he can talk to. Dan’s mostly weird for a guy. He doesn’t seem to worry about the same kinds of things that most guys I have known think about. But he’s very normal in that he’s not comfortable talking about his emotions with other people. With me, it seems to be ok. He just doesn’t know how to bring things like that up with anyone else. I told him that he should talk to our friend, Max. We have been spending a lot of time with Max and Emily and they both know what is going on. We are going to their church next weekend so we will be spending more time with them. I am hoping that this will make things easier for Dan.

So many people have told me that we are strong and we are great parents to let Ash go. It feels more like we are two drunks leaning on each other to stagger back to the car after last call. The problem with that is, we have three kids in the car with us.