I don’t know how many women leave a marriage and leave their children behind. I still don’t know how many openly talk about it to help and heal more.
I remember a comment Soila once made probably on a previous post of mine when she said she didn’t know many women would chose to leave their kids in that same ‘jail’ they were escaping from.
What I would admit even before proceeding, is the fact that guilt has a lot to do with ‘our shutting up’.
You see, society had long considered it more probable and even acceptable that the man should be the one leaving when a marriage sinks irretrievably. It was also and still is more probable and acceptable that the woman stays with the kids or in the ‘extreme or abnormal of divorces’, she leaves with her kids.
Well, a lot about me is unconventional and that is a whole book to be published soon.
Now, if I had money, if I knew what next, if I knew where next, or if I had a who next, I would have left with those I fondly call “The Real Men in my Life.”
But, I did not want to take all three back to my Mother’s. The eldest one, the one I brought to that marriage, could return to my mother’s but the other two were better off in the ‘jail’ I was escaping from.
It wasn’t a jail for them and to fast forward a bit, he even takes them on vacations now and buys them christmas gifts.
As I planned my escape, I talked with my men (in spite of their tender ages of 7, 5 and 2 as of when I left them in 2011), and painfully and tearfully explained to them what was at stake.
Yes it was and still is not easy. We miss each other so much, cry sometimes, laugh other times, write each other poems, emails, draw pictures and talk on the phone like once a week.
I still remember that famous May 26th when I packed them off to my Mother’s with letters already sealed for my parents and my ex.
I wanted them to go stay there a while before their father came to collect his own because I wasn’t sure how often he would let even my mother see them once he knew I had ‘vanished’.
If he had been there when I sent them off, he would have noticed something was wrong. He would have noticed how many things I sent them off with and how many times I hugged each of them and took pictures.
Now, making and taking the decision to leave my kids behind, is to me the ultimate sacrifice. I have lost two other children but I got over those loses pretty quick. I had my first, lost a second, had a third, lost a fourth, then had a fifth so in between each lose there was ‘a spare and a quick, so to say, replacement’ that followed.
Therefore, you would understand that leaving my kids behind meant I was leaving my all behind. It took me six months to finally go after I had spoken with them. It took me eight months to even get to speak with them thereafter because their father wouldn’t let me speak to them nor let anyone give me their house number and all.
I would had no one to turn to and got no support from my family then because to them I was ‘literally lost in mind and body’.
Leaving my kids meant I was now on my own and for a moment, I believed that I could live just for me.
But no, leaving my kids, jolted me to further action.
Simply put, as Les Brown my primo motivational speaker puts it, I became ‘Armed and Dangerous’. I spared no opportunity I could to get out there and do better. I dared to get those jobs I so wanted no matter what.
Leaving my kids behind did so much for me in the sense that it tried my pain and hurt to the max. The tears in my eyes pushed me to maturity but eventually that well ran dry. It forced me loose any extra kilos left from my previous 115 kg self. Above all, as from that day, I stopped even thinking of ill health. A former patient like myself, who had already sort of abandoned the drives to the hospital, became one very healthy woman.
When I think of my kids, I know I don’t have any lame excuse to give not to sleep just four hours a day if that’s what it takes. When I think of my kids, which is 24/7 and all the seconds in there, I can go without food just so that one day they can come over and live with me and have the life l would have loved to have as a teen.
Yes, all I have now are the mails, some lucky skype calls with the one at my mother’s when she’s home like this morning or some poorly connected phone conversations when the weather is at its best either here or over there.
For the other other two, who remained with their father, it’s been two weeks since we spoke. I heard this morning that ‘David my Shephard’ (one of my children) was sick but that it wasn’t serious. Even if it were, what can I do?
I miss their events and I’m sure you can list all else that I’m missing. Hey, I am even sure some will be judging me good bad or ugly and wishing they could…
Afterall, I have been called a witch back home and at some point their dad told them I was dead.
I once read a blog where another woman tried to explain why she left her children and I was amazed at how many judges were in the single courtroom for a case they all knew nothing about.
Well, one other thing leaving my kids behind did to me, was to enforce this ‘spirit’ I have in me of ‘doing my thing’.
I am soon publishing my memoir and it was just approved by CreateSpace this morning.
That book thrills even me because it is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I keep saying I hope it helps and heals more than it hurts.
As for me, I probably left behind guilt, shame, self pity and that feeling of wanting to be ‘conventional’ or tow along in life, when I left my Kids behind.
Dear Reader of The Divorce Magazine, do you have similar experiences, comments or remarks you may want to share?
Marie Abanga
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