In Pictures...

For those that have been through a divorce with children involved, you will understand what I am going to talk about today. Divorce is an ugly thing, not the unpardonable sin that I was raised to believe it is, but still not a pretty thing. The REAL victims of divorce are not the parents but rather the children. I mean...let's face it...you get to be rid of somebody that you hate getting up in the morning and seeing at the kitchen table drinking coffee! The kids though don't see it that way. The kids are going to miss somebody no matter who wins.

The situation is even worse when the parents live long distances from each other. My two older children have been raised in Michigan with their mom...while I live in Georgia. This situation has been hard on everybody involved, but particularly the children. I have struggled with the guilt of this for a long time and finally had to accept it for what it is. The hardest part of it, for me, is that I see them 2-3 months out of the year and you really don't realize how much a kid grows in a year till you only see them once a year. Every year it is like I am meeting completely new kids.

Rebekah Jewel is a little lady now. And little is just a manner of speaking! She has grown so much. Is a bookworm, just like I was when I was a kid. She is intelligent and witty. She is beautiful, going to be a real looker when she is all grown up. I am protective of my kids, and I hate I am not there to be the guy on the front porch cleaning out my shotgun scaring off the numb nuts that are wanting the only thing I wanted when I was their age! My little girl has gotten so big...My heart is too full of a myriad of emotions to really express what I feel. She will be thirteen this year. Another birthday I will miss...another Christmas I might miss unless I can find a way to make it happen. So many things. I haven't been there for homework, volleyball games, grades, report cards, detentions.....so many things that make up real life...make a parent a parent.




Benjamin Joel is also growing in leaps and bounds. This kid just amazes me. He is eleven. He is almost a tall as me and is already taller than Papaw (my dad) and Granny (by a long shot!) He has to be 5'9" which just blows my mind! He is a comedian. Everything is a joke, but under it all is a serious kid. While his sister is into reading books...he wants comic books...go figure. BJ used to have problems with wetting the bed....that problem seems to be gone. He had anger issues for a while, that also seems to have gotten better. He plays soccer...something I don't even have pictures of him doing. They are both taking taekwondo. He is big...but clumsy...but you can see he will be a good looking kid with a great personality.




Bethanie Rayne, of course, is not stranger on this blog. She suffers a lot as well through all this. For the last few years every time Becky and BJ leave she spends a week or so wandering around the house looking for them. It is sad really. Thankfully, this year is different. This year some big changes are coming down and she will not be alone.

For now we have the summer. And I have my kids...all of them. I am proud of them. I am afraid for them. I want the best for them and I want them happy. As they get bigger, I understand my own parents more. I understand that their disappointments were not with me, but with the fact that they wanted me happy, wanted to protect me and I was too stubborn and pig headed to make the right decisions to make my life successful and happy. They will always be proud of me as a person, if not my decisions and my actions. I understand now, a little late in the game, that they were right all along on so many things. And most of all, as I watch my kids grow up from a distance, I understand their helpless pain in watching things beyond their control affect the lives of those they love the most and would give their very lives for.



Our Gang