Let's not start at the very beginning. Let's start smack dab in the middle with the girl who was the turning point. Her name was Debbie. She was big as in tall, big-boned, big breasted, big voiced, big eyed and big in personality. She spoke her mind and carried herself with a self-assured authority which belied her level of education. I took to her right away. She came into my life at the time when another relationship was ending, my marital relationship, and I was facing a lot of firsts.
It is difficult to put into words how it feels, even now, as I recall the approach of those firsts - the first birthday, Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's and Easter as not a family. The loss is more than the tragedy of the way things are, it is the trauma of losing what had come before. Things like the Thanksgivings when my Mom and Dad came to visit our family in our single story four bedroom rambler on a third acre in my favorite South Austin Neighborhood of Shady Hollow. It was the house I paid someone to paint and wallpaper and when he was done and I didn't like the colors, I painted it again myself. That it fueled my husband's contempt makes the memory somehow sweeter. It was in that house that my daughter, Claire, had her Mad Science birthday party and in that house that she and a friend dressed up her younger brother, Ben, in a dress and mardi gras beads and painted his nails. It was a February when the kids found a pair of their jeans on the trampoline, frozen, like Flat Stanley, during an ice storm. It was in that house that Ben went from crib to bed and Claire picked out a brightly striped duvet cover from the PB Teen catalogue which I thought was gaudy but proved to be lovely. It was in that house that Claire spotted a package at our front door from her car seat as we pulled into the garage and disappeared with it around the side of the house where she could open it unfettered by parental authority. And it was in that house that three generations of my family sat for Thanksgiving dinner on a newly purchased dining room set from Ethan Allen with its upholstered chairs and custom made drapes which book ended the window overlooking the mature landscaping and shady Texas Oak Tree in the front yard. Not a Thanksgiving passes where I don't feel the pain of the loss of it all, not just what was but what had been hoped for - a happy family, not just the appearance of one; the type of family that other kids wanted to hang out with after school and on weekends; the family that raised well-adjusted kids who had activities and hobbies, did well in school and went off to Universities. The idea that my family would not be those things or have those experiences never crossed my mind. I grieve the loss of such ignorance. With each additional birthday and holiday that passes, I feel humbled by the things my children deserved and that I failed to provide - stability, reliability, consistency in boundaries and rules, parental presence, guidance, esteem and role modeling. I brought my kids into the world wanting to provide the best for them and I failed. That is what every holiday and birthday is a reminder of.
In the absence of my own happy family, our first Thanksgiving was spent in the presence of Debbie's. We sat around her spacious living room talking and taking in the smells from the kitchen while my kids and hers played upstairs. When the food was ready we sat down together around a beautifully decorated table and when we left for the night, the kids had wireless Xbox controllers in hand. "Take them!" our hosts told us, and we did. That first Thanksgiving in the home of Debbie's family was as good as it gets.
It is difficult to put into words how it feels, even now, as I recall the approach of those firsts - the first birthday, Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's and Easter as not a family. The loss is more than the tragedy of the way things are, it is the trauma of losing what had come before. Things like the Thanksgivings when my Mom and Dad came to visit our family in our single story four bedroom rambler on a third acre in my favorite South Austin Neighborhood of Shady Hollow. It was the house I paid someone to paint and wallpaper and when he was done and I didn't like the colors, I painted it again myself. That it fueled my husband's contempt makes the memory somehow sweeter. It was in that house that my daughter, Claire, had her Mad Science birthday party and in that house that she and a friend dressed up her younger brother, Ben, in a dress and mardi gras beads and painted his nails. It was a February when the kids found a pair of their jeans on the trampoline, frozen, like Flat Stanley, during an ice storm. It was in that house that Ben went from crib to bed and Claire picked out a brightly striped duvet cover from the PB Teen catalogue which I thought was gaudy but proved to be lovely. It was in that house that Claire spotted a package at our front door from her car seat as we pulled into the garage and disappeared with it around the side of the house where she could open it unfettered by parental authority. And it was in that house that three generations of my family sat for Thanksgiving dinner on a newly purchased dining room set from Ethan Allen with its upholstered chairs and custom made drapes which book ended the window overlooking the mature landscaping and shady Texas Oak Tree in the front yard. Not a Thanksgiving passes where I don't feel the pain of the loss of it all, not just what was but what had been hoped for - a happy family, not just the appearance of one; the type of family that other kids wanted to hang out with after school and on weekends; the family that raised well-adjusted kids who had activities and hobbies, did well in school and went off to Universities. The idea that my family would not be those things or have those experiences never crossed my mind. I grieve the loss of such ignorance. With each additional birthday and holiday that passes, I feel humbled by the things my children deserved and that I failed to provide - stability, reliability, consistency in boundaries and rules, parental presence, guidance, esteem and role modeling. I brought my kids into the world wanting to provide the best for them and I failed. That is what every holiday and birthday is a reminder of.
In the absence of my own happy family, our first Thanksgiving was spent in the presence of Debbie's. We sat around her spacious living room talking and taking in the smells from the kitchen while my kids and hers played upstairs. When the food was ready we sat down together around a beautifully decorated table and when we left for the night, the kids had wireless Xbox controllers in hand. "Take them!" our hosts told us, and we did. That first Thanksgiving in the home of Debbie's family was as good as it gets.
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