By the Dawns Early Light

It was night, the traffic leaving the  campus had finally come to a crawl. A night where I would have rather stayed home, yet I knew that my ex-wife, college aged son and daughter who has refused to talk to me for over a year and his boyfriend, would all be there. They would all have lawn chairs and sitting somewhere on the Texas A&M campus. I only have my youngest, a very short time, really I should have her for the summer and every other Holiday except for spring break, which is mine every year. I already have missed her growing up most my children's lives, all because two adults couldn't do what was right and be grownups. Work together, resolve differences and work together, both doing the best they could to get buy, as now the expense of everything is one and a half time larger. Two places to live, two water, electric, rents I could make a list, but rather just get to the point. Divorce is most of the time, the most stressful, painful, dragged out deaths of a best friend and flesh and blood one can have.

Even after moving on, often one has an ex they  haven't even made enemies with yet. Mixed marriages that end up taking up what little sanity one has. You partner is stuck in the middle. They love for their children, which in my case, she has her children, her love for your, and a dark line between both. Compartmentalizing her relationship with you, from that of her children. Often leaving one to feel as if at times, they are a room mate, and have the last thing to say on any matter and it doesn't really matter at all.

Yet, I have my youngest on this Forth of July and I want her to be with her siblings to celebrate. This very well could be the last time I celebrate with her, yet It's not about me, its about her. She knew I was somewhere lost out on that campus waiting for the smoke to clear, so she knows I didn't leave her, desert her and she got to watch the same show I did, just from a different side and aisle. 

I got some good pictures and a movie and my sone called me durring the finale, so I missed that. He told me to meet him in the road. Silly me, grabbed everything and went to the road of the GIANT campus, and he wasn't there. By the time I figured out, he didn't know where I was, I missed the end. I smiled. In this last week he has started talking to me again, like nothing happened. He's given me more hugs than he has since he was a little boy. I've spent a year here waiting for this and he waits until 3 weeks before I figure I'm wasting my time and decides he wants to have a Dad again. My daughter has her Boyfriend. She's in High School, He's in College. The day I moved here, she came with him to visit me, and then never spoke to me again, and wont tell me why. I hope she doesn't regret it later, maybe she will call me when the Ice melts, perhaps I wont ever see her again. It's all up to her. 

I'm hopefully going back to the one thing that makes me happy, doing for others. people who dont want a hand out, just a hand up. Funny I need a hand up, but I dont let it bother me too much. Yet when I can make a difference in a little boy or girls life, offer them an education I never got, I radiate attitude. 

They were not Macy Day Fireworks, not even close. They were one at a time, and the show lasted 15 minutes. A good house fire, of an abandon building would have been much more exciting, especially since I was a fireman at one time. 

Strange Days. 

Turn the Page -- Once again.

To the girl with long curly locks of hair, we have but a few precious moments in time, before you disappear in the back window, waving goodbye. I cant express in accurate words, how much being with you this summer has meant to me. A summer that seemed to have ended way too soon.

Your daddy loves you, so very much. Soon you will be so far away. You asked if you could come again next summer, to the beach here on the Texas sunny south side. Honey I said you were always welcome here, but I told a partial lie. I  have no idea where I will be tomorrow, less next year, but how do you say that, and not sound like a gypsy soul.

There are so many things that have happened, out of my control. My life is upside down, I've done all I can to shield you from my pain. The truth is, I move forward now, not knowing if I'll ever see anyone again. It's become the only way I've learned how to survive. There will come a day, perhaps, I will find the me I always wanted to be. I look in the mirror and what I see is the wall in back, but nothing that looks like me.

I'm so filled with misery and pain, from which I don't know how to let go. You were stolen from me, your childhood years, of which has caused me years of tears. I hope someday, I'll get that chance to tell you the story of a man who chased his children, tried to reclaim his wife, and lost everything, and cling onto life. The reason I still breath, is that I could not do to you, what I so much want to do to myself.

Love you

Daddy