Being A Mom is Hard

Even as I began writing this, I automatically put the date in, had to delete it, because that's how my letters to him always begin. 

Josh has decided that I have acted as though I abandoned him while he is in prison.  Because I couldn't send money, do all that he asked me to, that I don't love him as I said I did.  He discounts all the things i've done for him since the year 2000, which was the beginning of a descent into hell with him, that only eased in recent years.....until he wound up in prison.

He was really the one person in the world that I thought "got" certain things about me and I relied on his love if nothing else.  Now that is shaken, and some tell me it will revert back to the way it was upon his release.  I don't see how it can.  He has forever changed our way of relating to one another.  He has become an emotionally unsafe person.

My heart breaks over and over.  I give him to God, take him back and endlessly repeat.  Health issues are arising that will most likely be fine, but put my mind on the last part of my life.  How I have prayed for this boy, the man, my son.  And now, he doesn't have a clue.  If I had a million dollars, i'd give it to him and walk away, because there comes a time when the hurt is too great and it doesn't end.  That way, he'd know I love him and i'd be spared any of the rest.

Days come and go.  Most are so sweet with David, my love, my life.  There are exceptional ones that sparkle and shimmer with perfection and joy.  But always, always he flits through my mind like a shadow across the wall.  And the pain of it all, which was once tolerable because at least we had a good relationship, is now too much.  I want to run away, knowing that wouldn't help, he'll always be "in here."

These exchanges are packed full of baggage from things from the past.  I'm not going there again, I shouldn't have to.  As always, the only way to survive such gashing, deep pain is to crawl to the foot of the cross and lay it all down.  I cannot begin to describe the gratitude in my heart for a Savior that accepts me as I am, fills me with Himself and carries the burden for me.  What love.  What grace, what mercy.