Sadness

This post is deeply personal and while I have debated writing, this is my space to write and these thoughts are so strong I must put them to paper to purge them from my thoughts.

It is no surprise my family is in the middle of a fight to keep us together.  While any marriage battles to have success, our marriage has another player involved.  The government of the United States of America.  This player has the power to alter the lives of not only the two of us but also four children.  Two we share together and two that have come to call my husband their second father.  Regardless of the success and or failure we are having in our personal relationship, this player corrupts my thoughts and challenges my resolve to endure.

Through the guidance of an attorney we have been raging a war with this player for the last 18 months.  At every turn we have been met with resistance.  Call it a roadblock, barrier, bump in the road....call it what you may.....in the end it is pain.  It is more nights my children wonder if their father will be sent away.  It is more time we feel taken from us.  It is more money.  It is more of a desperate feeling of paralysis.  It is more realization that our family can be broken, shattered no matter our faithful effort to stay together.

Most recently we have been working on yet another form to file....one last hope.  In order to file this form we either require a signature from a third party (whom I will not mention by name) or numerous letters from people that know my husband from a few years ago.  According to the attorney, both are possibilities, while one is more desirable than the other.

Recently we learned this person has chosen not to sign the form.  While we have another option (the letters) my heart is full of multiple emotions.  The only emotion I will mention is sadness.....not for us, but for this person.

I know this may sound patronizing and truly it isn't.  Genuinly I am sad a person can get to such a point that basic humanity is as risk.  Sad a person can not see past their own pain and do the right thing.  Which makes me sad for their pain.  Their pain must be great to hold on to it for so long.  I am sad this person can not see the result of their decision and feels putting the desire to cause pain more of a deciding factor than recognizing these children may possibly loose their father.  A father, while flawed, does his best to be there for his children.  Taking that away from him, will hurt him (I believe this is the desired effect.)  I get that.  I see the motivation behind this persons decision.  But he won't be the one to suffer the most.  How is taking a good father away from his children ever the right thing to do?

So tonight, I am sad.  Not for my family.  We will overcome and endure.  We will continue this battle and in the end, we will be triumphant.  Tonight I am sad for a person that had the opportunity to do the right thing for a child and chose to look away.  When we can look at a child and disregard their needs, place our own pain before theirs and stand proudly by and justify this action.......all of us should be sad.