Looking back, I would never change the years I had with Jacob and Kyle's Dad. Mark is still one of the most amazing men I will ever be lucky enough to know and love.
I found myself giving his advice to a good friend of mine - a young high school girl that goes to our church... and all the while, smiling inside at the girl I used to be before he fell in love with me. Remembering how worried I always was and how uptight I used to be about everything. I never could relax and laugh or just be me...
The advice he would give me was to live life for the moment and not worry so much about the things you can't control...
When I gave this advice to my friend, and told her where I learned it from, Jacob heard me and left the room.
A minute or two later, he came back and patted me on the back and said, "My Daddy is a pretty smart man".
I could tell without looking at him that he had cried a little - just by the tone he gets in his voice...
It saddened me to know that something so small could bring a tear to his eye. It's one of those things you deal with, when you choose to get a divorce. Knowing the pain in the heart of your child is your fault.
I turned to Jacob and smiled at him...
"You're Daddy is an amazing man, and you, my sweet boy, are just like him"
"But I thought you hated Daddy?" he said to me, with a laugh.
He and I had been talking about this a lot lately. He knows I don't hate his Daddy. In fact, he knows I love him very much. I think, though, it would be easier for him, as a child, to understand why his Dad and I aren't together anymore, if we really did hate one another...
Instead of trying to hate him, or ever speaking about him negatively, I REMEMBER him.
I remember the moments we all had as a family when we laughed and loved.
It's easier to help a child that is torn apart by their broken family to remember the good and remember the laughs and remember the love. They don't want to hear how you fought or argued or "never got along" - whatever the case may be. They know those things happened. Trust me, they remember.
I have been trying so hard to raise four amazing children.
I have made mistakes.
I have made countless mistakes...
My older two children may never forgive me for the mistakes I have made.
I pray in my heart that they will some day.
But I know, they too remember... they remember the bad, the negative, the hatred, the yelling, the fighting, the criticizing, the words that hurt them...
At their age, its hard for me to make them forget by smothering them with love...
Remembering life...
Remembering moments...
Remembering love...
Maybe it would be better if we all had the secret little "guns" they had on "Men in Black" that could make you forget...not just for a little while, but forever....
Maybe then, just for one night, I could tuck those two little guys in, my little Jacob especially, without the tears in his eyes when he prays for his Daddy...
Then again... I am glad he doesn't forget what an amazing man he is and what an amazing Daddy he was... maybe it will help his Daddy remember too...
