Effects of Life

               No one can say with any certainty what is going to happen in their future but never would I have dreamed that my thirteen year old stepson would molest my nine year old daughter. As devastating as that was for my family, the thought of sending my stepson back to a nightmare existence with his mother without trying to help him, warred with the thought of what he had done and might possibly do again to my daughter. Back and forth I went about this decision and with my now ex-husband refusing to make a decision between his two children, it left the decision of what to do completely up to me. After much thought, and many discussions with my pastor, and many counselors, and my family physician, I chose to try to help my stepson, After two years of family therapy I found out I had chosen wrongly. This event cracked my family apart at the seams destroying my family forever, or so I thought at the time. The guilt, anger, and self-loathing caused me to break my faith with my God,and my future is now radically different than it would have been had this event not happened.
            By the time that I realized helping my stepson was never going to happen, I was living in Cherrypoint, NC. I had him removed from the house and sent back to his mother and I did not care what was going to happen to him at that point. The kids and I closed ranks around each other. Although he was in the USN at the time, my ex husband volunteered for every temporary duty he could and conveniently was sent off to parts unknown. There were other issues, there always are, but the long and short of it was that we were done as a couple, a family, however you want to look at it, our future was gone. I had lost a boy that I thought of as my own, and my children had lost a brother. Because my husband and I soon split up, they also lost a father. The day I moved back home to Maine, my ex husband stopped being in their life. I realize now this was his choice, but for many years I thought it was my fault. However I wanted to look at it, my life as I had known it and thought it was going to be, was never going to be that way again. My family was in splinters around me and I knew that it was going to be a long time before there would be a return to peace or stability in my life.
             During all the drama that was going on initially we were in Florida and I had my pastor and my church family and my faith, my ex husband received orders to NC and the stage was then set for the final disintegration of my family. When my family finally did split in to pieces, I was very isolated and so angry.  I felt like everything was my fault and I could not handle the overwhelming sense of guilt, anger, and self-loathing. So I blamed God. It was very easy to talk myself into believing that every bad thing was God's fault because He had let this horrible thing happen to my daughter and by extension,to me. No more would I share my burdens with Him or ask for His wisdom and guidance, or have someone who knew how I felt without my having to tell Him. I now had to handle everything that came my way on my own with no one to talk it over with and I had to rely on my own judgement to get me through every situation. I hope that I never have to be that alone and lonely again. It made me realize just how inadequate we humans are to make decisions on our own. There was a rage in my heart that I could do nothing with. It led to behavior that I am not exactly proud of, to say the least, but I do not deny it if I am asked about it. I was not in a place that I could accept my own responsibility in the whole mess and I had to blame someone, so I blamed God. I decided that since God didn't protect my daughter, my family, or my future as I thought they  should be protected when I asked Him to, then I was not going to give Him what He asked of from me either. That left a huge, very deep, very dark void in my life which I tried to fill with all the wrong people, habits, and things. I ended up hurting no one but myself really.Maybe that is what I was trying to do, punish myself for make the wrong choices. I finally crawled out of my pit and returned to my faith but I will always remember that deep, dark place when I was so bitter and alone. I know that I will never make that mistake again because even though I am alone at this point in my life, I am not lonely. I have too many people who care about me and love me and I will always have my faith to turn to to see me through the rough spots that I know will come my way.
             Before this event in my life happened, I thought that marriage was forever. Whether or not my husband was good, bad, or indifferent, he was my Prince Charming and we were going to live together happily ever after. I was supposed to have an old farmhouse with a wraparound porch and an apple tree in the yard. My husband had a job in which he was going to retire soon, we were going to buy that house, the kids would move out in their turn, and I would go back to school full time. I would then get a really cool job. I was supposed to be an accountant, or secretary or even a missionary. My life was all set, my future was assured and I was going to have a fifty year wedding anniversary. Then this happened and all bets were off. I was now the object that I had always pitied, a single mother with no education, struggling to take care of her kids as best she could with all the state aid she could qualify for. It would be another two decades almost before the idea of school could even be contemplated. What I wanted to be then is not what I want now. I would never have dreamed that I would be the wife of a prisoner who is doing hard time. I never thought that I would be cleaning toilets for a living, and living in a forty year old trailer with issues.
              So here I am today and time heals all wounds as my mother kept trying to tell me through all this and I have to say the only thing that I am sure of in my life is that my mother is a very smart woman and I should have listened to her about many different things a long time ago. I eventually picked up the pieces of my life and put them back together albeit in a different order than they were to begin with. I found my faith again and feel blessed that my God is a forgiving one. I am not alone anymore and have found the kind of peace that I needed to make it through life on my own two feet, and I have a whole church family that are there for me and to help me stay on the right track. As for my future, although it is radically different then I thought it was going to be,I own my own home such that it is right on the river. I am in college and I am there on my terms not anyone else's. My children are grown and becoming responsible citizens whatever that really is, and my husband although a bad boy is one of the most honest people I have ever met with a bigger heart in him than almost anybody I have ever met. He can spot bullshit from across the room and instinctively knows more about parenting than I will ever read in all the how-,to books out there. He is the love of my life and beside him all others pale in comparison. This thing that happened to my family was an awful thing, more awful then anything I could ever have dreamed of, but I got through and I helped my daughter through it. She doesn't hate me for which I am thankful for. My husband is coming home soon enough and the future is starting to look pretty good again. I guess my mother was right after all and time does heal all wounds.