After years of turmoil and custody battles, Pauline Gaines finally gets to spend a Mother’s Day just appreciating her teenage son.
By Pauline Gaines for DivorcedMoms.com
Franny called from her dad’s yesterday morning to tell me she was feeling sick and wasn’t up to going to brunch. I was partly relieved. I hate the constraints divorce puts on hoidays, the pressure to pack Kodak moments into short bursts of time. I wasn’t looking forward to picking her up from her dad’s, racing to the restaurant for brunch, then rushing to get her back to her dad’s.
But I was also partly disappointed. I had never not been with Franny on Mother’s Day and it didn’t feel right without her. She had been talking about Mother’s Day for weeks: Where would we eat? What did I want for a present? She was also on her brother’s ass to at least get me a card.
When I told Luca Franny was feeling sick, he was convinced her dad had pressured her into not coming.
“It’s not a big deal,” I said, even though I was feeling like it was kind of a big deal. “We’ll celebrate together next weekend.”
“But can I give you your present now?”
I blinked.
“You got me a present?”
He handed me a tiny box containing Rescue Remedy, an anti-stress tincture just one notch up from snake oil, sold at the health food grocery store where he works.
“Studies show it’s 70% more effective than mood stabilizers, Mom.”
“Let’s hope,” I said.
While he mixed four droplets into my water, I read his card.
“Dear Mama, You are da best Mama I have. If I had another, you’d be a close runner up for second! HAHA, just kidding. You really are the best. Things are only going to get better from here. HAPPY MAMA DAY!!! I LOVE YOU!!! Love, Luca.”
I laughed. I cried. I felt like a schmuck. I had been a raging bitch the day before, all bent out of Feng Shui shape, pushed over the edge by the chaos of his chargers and clothes and electronics and teeny-tiny tools for futzing with electronics strewn all over the living room which is also his bedroom.
The mess makes me nuts because it’s a metaphor for the state of my life right now. I am overwhelmed at work, just the slightest bit anxious about the Custody Battle Part Deux, and really, really, REALLY anxious about my dwindling bank account. Historically, no matter how insane my single mom reality was, I always found solace in my tidy, well-appointed surroundings.
But my surroundings are tidy no more. They haven’t been this non-tidy, in fact, since my early twenties, back in the decade where it’s perfectly acceptable to step over piles of detritus after walking through the door.
On Mother’s Day Eve, I had yelled at Luca for leaving his stuff everywhere and he had yelled at me because he didn’t have a space for his stuff and we had situated ourselves in front of separate TVs and tried to pretend the other didn’t exist.
When I read the card I was struck by the line, “things are only going to get better from here.” It made me forget, for a moment, the clutter, and the fear, and the stress of my daily life. It made me reflect on my son’s spirt. And it made me reflect on the power of time and healthy detachment and unconditional love to heal ruptured relationships. And it floored me that only three years ago my son couldn’t stand me.
Luca and I went to see a matinee of Divergent, the sci-fi flick about a young woman who doesn’t fit neatly into any of the government-sanctioned social classes. It ocurred to me, after we left the movie, that Luca and I are both divergent — two people that defy categorization, and wouldn’t have it any other way.
Franny called me later that night. She actually had gotten sick to her stomach, but was feeling better, and wanted to know how my Mother’s Day had gone.
I told her about the Rescue Remedy, and the movie, and reassured her that the three of us would go to brunch next weekend. I told her I missed her, which was true. But after a couple years of spending Mother’s Day only with her, it seemed fitting that I spent one just with Luca.
And to consider that maybe, as Luca wrote on his card, things would get better from here.
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Originally appeared at DivorcedMoms.com
More from our partners at DivorcedMoms:
Pauline Gaines…I am writing in an effort to contact you directly..I’m a single mother of 3..the articles you have written had me sobbing with huge emotion today..your story could and is mine..my cries for help have fallen on deaf ears..please contact me..519-846-5961. I am at the cross road of where my son needs to be and it’s tearing at my soul. His dad wants to “give it a try” but I know Cody needs intensive therapy..in house. I have felt isolated and alone until I read your articles..I have no life..kids come first..!.?!?
Thank you for sharing this story. I have met thousands of mothers going through the trauma of custody courts, many losing their children to the batterer or molester. An event unimaginable, the horror mothers feel. For these mothers, mothers day is a day of grieving. Many of the mothers have been forced to leave their children in the homes of abusers forced by court orders and unable to see their children. Some of the mothers visit their children in detention centers…supervised visitation programs where the visits are short and monitored making it impossible for real affection. One mother reported on… Read more »
Thank you for your comment, and for the information about your organization. Mother’s Day — and Father’s Day — is so painful for alienated parents. But it’s important to remember things can change, and relationships can heal.
Glad your organziation is out there. Of course, removing children from good fathers and failing to protect them from bad mothers has been and continues to be the norm in American family courts. Too bad your organziation works exclusively on the basis of gender of the partent instead of on the basis of the behavior of the parent. Perhaps the child/family advocates aren’t yet ready for gender equality in 2014. Here’s hoping for a better 2015!
Many of us have been where you were, and still are not where you are. The whole process seems to work against all involved. But I’m glad you are, and Happy Mother’s day, Mom.
Aww…thanks, Mark!