The story everyone wants to hear, is how could you leave your son when you became a VISTA volunteer? This is the hardest story to tell. My son is my earth and sky. My leaving him behind ripped my heart to shreds. When you have a child, there is nothing you wouldn't do to keep him safe and happy. My leaving was to make sure he still had a Momma. I was on the verge of doing something stupid. If I did not get out of town, I would be dead. I have said this to him. He has forgiven me and we have never been closer.
For the first 12 years of his life, my son lived with me for a week and his father for a week. I held full custody, but his father lived in a better neighborhood, with good schools. It worked for us.
One night at dinner, my 11 year old announced he wanted to be a priest. He was in a private Catholic school. A priest? I asked him. I really wanted to hear how he came to this idea. This could possibly make me the first Jewish momma whose son became a priest.
I want to help people he replied. So you want to be a priest because you want to help people? I asked. Yup, as he bit into his hamburger. Okay I am thinking. I love his reasoning, but a priest?? Nothing wrong with priests mind you, but my son? A priest?
A few weeks pass, and we don't talk about his aspirations of becoming a priest. At dinner, I ask him, so how is the whole priest thing going? Still thinking about it? Nope he replied Why not as I try put my water glass down. Priests can't have dogs, so I am not going to be a priest he told me. What do you mean, Priest's can't have dogs? Well he explained, the parish pays for your house and your food, and I don't think its right to have the parish pay for dog food. As a silent thank you was sent up to the gods for our two dogs, I could not get over the thought this kid had put into this priest idea. Leave this kid, really?
We were always great together, my kid and me. I never had any expendable income, so we always had fun on what little money I did have. One year, for his birthday, I had found the cutest little cottage, right on the Potomac River to move to. One of my gifts to him was to surprise him with it. As we started driving to the wildlife refuge down the road from the new house, I told him to put his coat over his face. He did and we laughed as I kept teasing him about what the surprise could be. We pull in front of the house and I told him to move his coat. His face lit up like a christmas tree. You can't put a price on those moments.
While we were living in that little cottage, I met a man. I call him the idiot now, but at the time, he seemed to be a good man. It had been a very long time since my last long-term relationship and my divorce from my son's father, and I was ready to fall in love again. The idiot was the extreme opposite of my ex-husband. Where one was angry, the other was almost timid. Where one was controlling, the other wasn't. He was easy and comfortable. He loved my son and my son liked him. So I married him.
Without going into all the dirty details I know everyone really wants to hear, the relationship went south, really fast. And it was ugly. We separated after discussing what was going wrong and started seeing a marriage counselor. That went well for a couple of weeks. Then he began to accuse me of horrible things. And he stalked me.
The idiot would come in the house and leave me pictures of himself and crazy notes like "I'll be home for dinner honey". Still creeps me out. I got the locks changed, and he was able to get a key made because his name was still on the lease. He wasn't paying anything mind you, but he could still claim his "residency". He pulled a small tube looking thing out of his pocket one day and told me it was a bug, and he had bugged my house. We had a room for my son, with the light switch on the outside of the room. When the idiot wouldn't leave, I took to staying in that room with the door locked. One night he kept flicking the light switch off and on, all night long. This was bad, but it was about to get much worse.
I was working full time at a very large, very secure company, and part time at night waiting tables. I worked a part time job primarily because I was afraid to go home. I was always scared that he would be there. There were nights I hid my little car behind a huge rhodendrum tree and got ready for bed in the dark so he wouldn't know I was home. If he was there, I rented a hotel room or slept on my mother's couch. One night when I thought it was safe, he came in the house in the middle of the night mutterng "god damn bitch, where are you?" He was drunk and I was hiding in a closet. My son was staying at his Dad's house because I knew he would be safe there and I didn't want to subject him to this behaviour. Momma is not afraid of anything and he knew that. Momma was actually terrified for years.
Get a restraining order, right? This is serious crazy behavior. Three times I went to the police to try to get a restraining order against him. Three times I was turned down. I was on my own.
The epic stupid white trash cops moment came the night I locked myself in the bedroom with my german shepard. The idiot starts screaming at me through the door. I called the 911. He took the hinges off the locked door and came at me, literally snarling. I am not hiding any more. I get out of the bed and start pushing him out of the bedroom, out of the house. We are both yelling at this point. I'm yelling get out of my house! Get out of my house! My girl Kia was trying to bite him. And then the police come, and get him to leave. I am living an episode of cops. This is my life: nice Jewish girl of a certain age from a good background being talked down by a police officer.
Momma is no fool and Momma is not afraid of anything. Except spiders. I contacted the security people at the really big corporation I worked at and got his phone number blocked. He could not get to me at the really big corporation. And I started plans to find another place to live where he couldn't find me. I found a new house and moved on a Monday morning with my brother standing outside the house, armed. The idiot had the good sense not to show up that day.
Life was getting back to my sense of normal, until I got a phone call from the police department. I needed to go down to the police department for some paperwork. I was at work and naive enough to think this had to do with the three orders of protection I was trying to get. My police station visit was not to protect me from the idiot. My police station visit was to arrest me for assualt and battery. Against him. He filed an assault and battery charge against me, and there was a warrant for my arrest because of it.
I have never been in trouble with the law. I've never raised my hand, and rarely my voice, in anger. Assault and battery.
They did not arrest me because they recognized me from the first THREE times I had been down there to try to get an order of protection. I was not booked, or fingerprinted or anything. They knew it was a ridiculous claim, but they had to let me know I had a court date. Where I am the Defendent. After a blessed few weeks of semi-stability, I am terrified again. This time, about going to jail on charges that I assaulted him. After he took the door off the hinges to get to me.
My life was spiraling out of control and all I could do was react. I hired a bitch of a lawyer and my closest friend went to court with me. He was alone. No one to "support" him. My case comes up and I am the Defendent. I am the one closest to the jail door with the big people with guns. And handcuffs.
The Judge call me to testify and I explain what happened that night. I called 911. He took the door off its hinges to get to me. My dog was jumping on him in defense of me. All of it is true, however I am seriously concerned that I am going to jail. This had reached such a level of absurdity that going to jail was a real possibility at that moment.
Then the Judge called the idiot to the stand. It was a thing of beauty. In his own words, he said he did what I said he did. He even had photos of the "bruises" I inflicted on him. The Judge never looked at the photos. The Judge looked at me. Then he looked at the idiot and said this case is worthless and threw my case out. No jail for me. To this day, I swear he had someone beat him up for those pictures. He is just that much of an idiot.
My girlfriend and I leave the courthouse with my attorney and he is right there, continuing to make threats. We kept walking to the car and once in the car, he was riding our tail, flipping us/me off. We went to a diner and she expressed her concerns for my safety. At this point, I am angry. Really angry. No one is going to mess with me ever again I told her. He's a creep and an idiot and I am seeing a very large and protective man. Like my Kia, he will protect me.
Six months later, I am on my way to bet you can't find it on a map, Blanding Utah. My life had been turned upside sideways by this three year experience and I couldn't subject my son to any more ugliness. I ran. I ran to the furthest place I could be from Virginia to feel safe again. Because of my relationship with his father, I knew my son would be safe, going to a great school, and getting ready for the rest of his life. I could not bring him to the middle of nowhere, Blanding Utah.
I have two very big regrets in my life. The first is leaving my boy because of the actions of a certifiable idiot. The second is another story.
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