Letter written on April 30, 2012…
“Love can be hard. Love requires you to be kind when you are angry, patient when you feel anxious, compassionate when you judge others, caring when you feel apathetic, trust when you’ve been wronged, let go when you want to hold on, know that the other person is you, take risks when you’re scared, to always see the lesson and never look back once you’ve decided.” – Jackson Kiddard
I cannot tell you how many times I have had to live these words. I really love you two with all my heart and soul but you have been taken from me in ways that I cannot describe. There have been so many times I have wanted to tell you how I feel but I am not able to because you would not understand. I live for the day you understand. I will document what happens, what I go through, how I feel, and what I stand for.
I believe that before we are born we stand before God with our spirit guide, angels, and all the loves of our life and plan what we will go through in our lifetime. We plan our illnesses both physical and mental. We plan who we will have in our lives; from those who we will meet for a brief season; to those who will be our friends to help us through the happy and sad times; to those that will take us through the most difficult lessons we must learn. I believe we are given free will and we make choices here that can affect us. But for the most part those who are put in our path were chosen before we got here. Sometimes I wonder why I chose who I did, but then I see you two. I must know it was because of you. The three of us had an agreement and I sacrificed a lot to let y’all have what you have. That is what mother’s do. That is what father’s do. Father’s who know love, like the love of God. I mean look what God sacrificed by giving up His son in death for us. It is concepts like that, that keep me moving along this path I chose.
Having said all that you must know that I do love your dad. I love him unlike anyone else in his life loved him. I love him for who he is underneath all that facade he has. I do not love him for his money. I am probably the only person ever who loved him like this and he did not know how to handle this. Your father is mentally ill and the older he gets the worse he gets. I am saying this with complete compassion (see quote above). I do not judge your father. It is not my place. But I have dealt with his mental illness for over 25 years now. I KNOW WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT. His illness has wreaked havoc on my life for all these years and will for years to come unless he seeks help. But his illness is one where the sick individual loves his illness so much that he will never acknowledge it – unless he is forced to. I have tried to force him….to no avail. You will see. Maybe one day he will hit rock bottom and will have to face it. Maybe one day, one of you will force him to hit rock bottom. Only time will tell. But that is between him and God to be honest.
I am sad for your dad. Knowing what I know about his illness I know that it is worse for him to live with it. He is living a lie. And y’all are sucked into that lie. I often wonder if y’all realize it. You see y’all are forced to rely on him for y’all are still minors. I remember what that was like. I thought my childhood was normal until my junior year in college. I remember very distinctly I was taking Theories of Psychology and it came to me like an “ah ha!” moment. My childhood was not normal. However, there is no such thing as “normal”. There was a bigger world out there. I can only hope and pray you see that day too one day. And I can only hope and pray that you see what I went through while you were children. How I hurt every single day for you. How I suffered at your dad’s hands and how he hurt me so. He maliciously hurt me and he did so with a vengeance. You will see as I will have it documented every step along the way how he planned and manipulated things to work his way. He has serious control issues and will do everything he can to control the situation so it works his way and he will hurt everyone in his way no matter what. Trust me I have been hurt thousands of times because of it.
Boys, this is not normal. Nor is this right. One of my biggest fears is you will grow up with his value system and never see the err of his ways. And even worse you will never see what I stand for. So I write. I will write and write until hopefully it is all down in words that you will see what I went through. And most importantly what I stand for!
I can tell you right now that I do not stand for money. That right there is probably the main reason for me that we got a divorce. Not the fact that your dad was dating another woman. Even though he was. But it takes two for a marriage to fall apart. I can tell you right now that my part for the marriage falling apart was the fact that I did not stand for being all showy when it came to money. I abhor that concept right there. We used to live in LaPorte in a little house and had real friends and had fun. But when your dad fired all those friends and did something in his business in December of 1994 that irritated all his close, real friends we moved. We bought that huge house in Richmond and that was not my style. As soon as we bought that house your dad never returned to LaPorte. And we lost all our normal friends. We started living a lifestyle that is not normal, nor was it normal for Kenny. Your dad changed. And something snapped, but I was pregnant with Kyle.
And so I live with the words of this quote and strive to teach this to you as well…..Love can be hard. Love requires you to be kind when you are angry, patient when you feel anxious, compassionate when you judge others, caring when you feel apathetic, trust when you’ve been wronged, let go when you want to hold on, know that the other person is you, take risks when you’re scared, to always see the lesson and never look back once you’ve decided.”
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