Backwards Motion

Do you ever feel like you've suddenly just gone backwards?
With out any warning, you feel like you've moved back on years of progress.
Like all your hard work and extra hours and valuable time and energy and effort were wasted?
The kind of day when you wonder why it's worth it to always give so much when someone who does so little winds up rewarded in the end.
I had one of those days yesterday.

The kind of day that makes you want to curl up in the fetal position and sleep til it's over.
The kind of day where you wonder if all that you do really doesn't matter in the end... it's not even noticed.

Michael's has almost no relationship with his father at this point.
He left years ago and moved to a different state, seeing Michael once or twice a year, and that's me being generous.
His father hasn't had to go through multiple doctor's appointments in a week, multiple visits and calls to a teacher in a day, hours spent desperately trying to get him to finish his homework, his dinner or cleaning his room.
His father has missed the tears, the laughter, the hard times and the amazing times.
He's missed the desperation when I can't find a babysitter for a Saturday that my husband and I both have to work. He's missed the desperation when I don't have enough money to pay for all of Michael's prescriptions. He's missed the all out violent tantrums when Michael's medication is not just right.
He's missed the joy of losing a tooth, meeting a new friend and riding a bike without training wheels for the first time. He's missed the joy of finally getting good grades. He's missed that laugh that comes from the bottom of his stomach and overwhelms me with it's cuteness. He's missed the look on his face when he scored his first goal in soccer and the elation on his first shut out as a goalie.
He's missed getting him up every morning and reading books to him every night.
He's missed everything.
If you ask me, he doesn't know his son at all.
Me? I've been there for every second of it. The good, the bad, the beautiful, the ugly. I put everything I have into raising this child. I've made sacrifices without any regrets.

So it hurts, desperately, when Michael looks at me, so innocently, and tells me "Mom, I really love you... but I love my Dad the most." That statement turned into 10 minutes on how much he misses his Dad and how much he knows his Dad misses him.

I've made it a point to never trash talk his father or his father's decisions to Michael. I've done really well at it. Yesterday made me want to throw that out and tell him what I really thought about the situation. I wanted to tell him that I would never understand how a man could leave such an amazing, brilliant and loving child. How I had no respect for the decisions that his father has made and my only hope and prayer was that Michael turned out to be his father's stellar opposite. How I prayed that my husband's influence and teaching were sinking in and that only from my husband could Michael learn to be a man. Basically, I wanted to tell him the truth.

Instead, I smiled and told him that I was just glad that he loved me too and that it's not a contest to me. And yes, I'm sure that his Dad misses him. And I left it at that.

Someday he'll see.
I hope.