Despite my determination to never put my children through the anxiety of a jailhouse visit, when my son asked to see his dad, I couldn’t say no.
, things took a drastic change. My son would win a baseball game, score well on a test or meet a new friend and he would want nothing more than to call his dad. For Christmas last year, he asked Santa for the gift of seeing his dad on Christmas Day. He would try to keep his dad informed on his siblings’ events as well to make sure his dad was still there, even if his body was absent. He protected him in a way a child shouldn’t have to look out for their parent.
My younger kids didn’t understand their dad’s situation, and I worried that seeing him in that environment would raise questions and cause additional heartache and fear. My preschooler once told a teacher at school that her dad had died—. My middle child would sometimes question where he might be living, if he still loved them or if he thought of them, but those questions came infrequently and usually only after Tommy had said something about missing his dad.
Tommy, too, was a ball of nerves. The tension had been building for weeks, and now the day had arrived.When I saw his dad walking up to the glass window, I felt a flood of relief. He smiled, and Tommy crumbled. He was like a toddler again seeing his “best bud.” I could see that he had been yearning for any indication that his dad missed him too, that he was also struggling to be apart, and that he still loved him.
It wasn’t long before I realized my ex wasn’t going to make the effort to see his kids when he got out. I couldn’t have been more disappointed. I had hoped that his arrest and incarceration would have opened his eyes and made him want to work on being a parent again. The parent he was before. Or at least take baby steps on the path to getting there.
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