Monday, December 19, 2011

I Want My Son Back

Life doesn't come with instructions.Only guidelines laid out to us by our peers and the rest is up to us and fate.
Life can be so difficult for some and a struggle to work through it's various intricacies, while others seem to glide through it seamlessly.
Oh sure, if you were born with the veritable silver spoon in your mouth it's usually an easy transition, but most people are not.


What a tangled web we sometimes weave.
I don't know about you, but I've been in more situations that I thought would spell out the end of me than I care to recall. 
Situations that were nigh on impossible and called for desperate measures and even then, I didn't know how I could possibly solve them and keep my head up to keep keeping on.


They say that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. A truth perhaps
 too close for comfort.
Sometimes it seems that life really is all about how we go from one problem to the next trying to solve each of our unique problems,putting out the fires best we can and moving on with fingers crossed that we could stay the course of smooth sailing at least for awhile until something else crops up.


What is important to one person is often meaningless to another. That doesn't make it any less important. We are all the same but we are all so different at the same time.
Each of us brings some of our own uniqueness to the world.
That's what makes life so fascinating and challenging.


We all make mistakes. I've met people that insist on their lives that they never make mistakes. This kind of makes me laugh and it's so far fetched and unbelievable to me that anyone could go through life and not make mistakes. Besides that, I've witnessed some of these people making huge blunders eventually that rock them to the core and trying to come to grips with the fact that they're re not infallible.
It's hard to see what's going on around you with your head buried in the sand.


I know I've made mistakes. Lots of them and I've paid dearly for most of them. I would never claim to be perfect and beyond reasonable doubt, know that no one person is perfect, regardless of their claims.
Some people happily stumble through life without ever taking any calculated risks and are quite satisfied with their own results.


While there's almost always some way to work out the problems we encounter, there is always some that we may never be able to solve to our satisfaction.
Most of the time, we bring these problems on ourselves by the way we think and our approach to life and the way we adopt certain beliefs we should not have.




I've had a problem like that for a few years now.Things don't always work out they way we planned them. Call it Murphy's law, Sod's Law,the Law of Averages,whatever.


I have a son from my first marriage of three marriages. he has always meant the world to me. His Mother and I split up when he was six years old. We got married too young (19 ) for all the wrong reasons and slowly drifted apart having little in common. After eleven years it was over.
To me, my son was one of the best things to ever come out of my first marriage.

I worked continental rotating shifts for eleven years, meaning I worked every second weekend. on my weekends off, I took custody of my son religiously and enjoyed his company immensely and although I didn't get to watch him grow up as close as his mom did. I did my level best.


We built models and went to flea markets, played hockey, watched movies, went camping and hiking.We were as close as a father and son could be under those circumstances. Everywhere we went, people would compliment his impeccable manners and said what a nice young man he was. 


Like a lot of couples, one of them sometimes spends a lot of time trying to poison the child's mind against the other parent.   Unfortunately, I heard this was happening from my son. I never bought into the game as I believe it's very wrong and let her play it on her own. In spite of what she thought or thinks still, I know in my heart that I am a good person with a kind heart and good intentions. I also loved my son unconditionally and would never do anything to harm him.


Eventually I decided to move back East to where I came from after 23 years of a roller coaster ride living in Calgary. With all it's highs and lows, and after a second marriage ended, I asked my son, now about sixteen if he wanted to move east with his dad. Whether he did or not, his mother soon put and end to that and I went back on my own.


This new path eventually led me to my 3rd marriage to an English girl I had met while she was in Canada on holidays. I kept in touch with my son as best as I could and when we decided to move to England, I again invited him to come with me.  Again the answer was no and I spent four years out of the seven years we were together in England. My son contacted me and told me he was going to get married and could he come to see us in England for his honeymoon. I was elated after not seeing my boy for several years and of course he could come.


Sadly, my 3rd marriage ended and I came back to Calgary.The first thing I did was to have my son come and visit. We had a nice visit and I saw him once more.  After that, he suddenly decided that he didn't want me in his life anymore and being of the physic nature I am, knew in my heart that this was more pathetic bitter meddling.


I haven't seen him now for a year or more, he even got married and never invited me to the wedding. He decided that he doesn't need me in his life and wants nothing to do with me. Of course I told him the door was always open to him if he changed his mind and that I hoped he would.


Now that Christmas is approaching, it's all a very hurtful time knowing that I live in the same city as my son and will not see him or be able to buy him any gifts. He's my only child for god sake. It rips your heart out.


I don't blame his mother entirely. The rest I blame on myself and my belief that honesty is always the best policy. My son has proven me wrong. I never hid any truth from my boy and was always honest with him about my life and the things I got up to.


Too honest as it turns out, as at least some of the things I told him did not sit well with him as sometimes our kids are to young to understand our actions. Yes it's true. Honesty is not always the best policy.
There is such a thing as your kids knowing too much too soon, or even knowing things they never should.
I'm not recommending lying to your kids. Only to be very careful that they are old enough to understand some of the things we do and have been through.


I want my son back !

My only hope is that he realizes life is very short and we should not deny each other the  privilege of spending time together. My door is still open to him and will be as long as I am still alive. Life is so precious and can be taken from us at any moment, I hope the time of reconciliation is closer rather than far away. 


All I can do is leave that door open to him. I can't force him to walk through it. I can't be bitter or let it eat my guts out and make me ill.
It's a situation I have to accept with grace.  I know I've never done anything bad enough to him that warrants this kind of expulsion from his life, but it is out of my control.


The chances he will read this are probably slim and none and even if he does, it's no guarantee that anything will change.
The only fact that remains is:





I want my son back !


                                Do have a good day.  J. R Hilton 




   







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