Abandoned, that's it!

It has taken me a few years to figure out THE WORD to use for how I was feeling and how I feel now. It hit me last night, as I was talking to my oldest daughter while cleaning up the kitchen from the Thanksgiving dinner we had finished earlier that day. When the word came out of my mouth...ABANDONED....I burst into tears.

Let me take you back a ways so you'll understand just a little and why the word abandoned fits my feeling now. As a little girl, I was always teased at school, by the boys especially. They called me terrible ugly names, one stuck with me for life, DOG (and yes they even barked at me..:(.. ) How's that for enjoying school? I grew up with a abusive father, my mom was a heavy drinker and I had a younger brother and a older sister. Why in the world at age 9 I was so worried I wouldn't get married or have children? I remember laying in my sisters arms at night crying because I told her no boys liked me, I'm never going to get married because I'm ugly and if I did get married I'd have ugly kids. She would just let me cry and tell me everything would be ok and that I was not ugly, (bless her soul...she's the one who also stole my credit cards years later for drugs). Anyway, so going through all that and then to top it off ending up in foster homes had some effect on me and how I was going to grow up and live my life. Which would totally surprise a lot of people and a lot of people have told me so. So I am now taking you to my quick adult life at age 18, as I am leading you, remember into the word I choose for my feeling I was trying to find that expressed how I felt a fews back up until Thanksgiving night while talking to my oldest daughter, my baby girl.

I had a dream of being a super model or a court reporter when I grew up but instead I put that aside to get married at age 18. I still can't figure out why I decided to get married so young as I had come out of a life that was not fit for a child living in, but somehow deep in my heart I wanted to have children, I wanted to be the best mom ever and I knew deep down in my heart that everything and anything that I endured as a child, my children would never go through any of that, EVER and that I, MELISSA ANN would break any cycles that followed my family. So, I got pregnant with my first child about 4 months after getting married but lost it, and all these years I had thought God didn't think I was ready for children but that's not the case, it was because of different blood types is why I lost the baby. So I went on but even now I still think about that baby I lost, I love it even though I didn't know it. Years passed and I ended up having three beautiful daughters, and I am not saying that cause I'm their mom, they are beautiful children not just in looks but their heart. Now this might get a little long here but I want to get this out cause this is how I really feel and again why I choose the word...Abandoned.

So, I have these three daughters that I just adore. I remember my first baby and how I didn't let anyone not even my own mother take my baby girl for a week long visit until she was 6months old. I had a great fear of someone taking her and when I finally let go of my baby, I would tell my mom to please roll the window up while stopped so no one could grab her out the window, and make sure if she took her to the store to buckle her in and put her purse around the baby so that way someone who tried taking her had lots of trouble getting her out. My mom thought I was nuts. I remember one time babysitting for a couple of kids that lived with their grandmother as foster children (these kids I also call my own), well one day they had a caseworker over at their house and this lady commented on how my baby didn't seem to have one bruise on her and how clean she was, O I was proud and told that lady, this is my baby and I watch her like a hawk, she smiled. I remember when we visited hubby's grandparents down in Florida for her first Christmas and the baby was almost 1yr and she wasn't minding and he went to paddle her butt, OMG I went off and told him, You don't ever hit my baby. Now thinking about it there was nothing wrong with that but I was an overprotective MOMMY now. I would never let my girls wear dresses cause I always knew it was easy access to some pervert, my kids played and were kids, never cleaning the house, doing dishes, laundry, I cleaned and did all my mommy chores like I was supposed. O don't think my kids didn't clean their room or pick up their toys cause they did, it was only after we started taking in foster children that even then it took years for me to make them do anything housework, I mean come on, I'm a stay at home mom, that's my job, right? Before we moved to California, lots of people told me that everytime they came over that's all they ever saw me do was cooking and cleaning and picking up after kids and that I needed to start making them help out. I thought, no that's my job. I to felt guilty when I did ask them to do something. I never made them until after we moved. We adopted 3 sisters, so I had 6 daughters now. As they grew and became these TWEENS is when I started making sure they all knew how to clean a home and help take care of themself. I think I did very well even though some don't show that they can keep their own house clean, but hey I taught them and now it's their choice how they live and it should not reflect on me as a parent. I was with my birth children from the day they were born until they graduated high school and I was with my adopted children from the time we got them until they left home. I was always there, I always listened to them with an open ear, I mean I was the one they came to about things they didn't want their father knowing about, I was just always there in every way a mom should be even through their terrible teens, which was awful with a few of them. I always supported their dreams and their hopes, I was there when they got their heart broke from some dumb guy who hurt them, I was there for them when they thought they could count on their BEST friend, just from boo boos to boyfriends. I went to all school meetings, hospitals, ERs, volleyball, water polo, you name it I was there. OMG, I wish that I was my own mom and you know even my mother will tell me how proud she is of me and how she wishes she was a mother to me like I am to my kids. She feels awful and cries about how things went down and you know what I tell her? I say, Mom, you did the best you could in the time you were in for back then. I made mom understand that how she grew up and how she got treated was not her fault, just like I tell my children that how I grew up and what happened to me was not my fault, ever. Only difference is I stopped cycles in my family, of child abuse and alcoholism. So there you have it...the PERFECT MOM.

Which takes me to that word ABANDONED. The last few years my children finally grew up and became adults, except one who still lives at home now. It was awful when my first child left home cause then after that it was one right after the other. Now my birth children never left home until they graduated and turned 18, my adopted children had other ideas and left home at 17 and on top of that I took in my nieces and they to quit school and moved out at 17. It was just awful and I kept thinking...."What in the hell as gone wrong and am I a bad mother?" I had to think so because my oldest left when she was 19 which was fine, she graduated high school but in the mean time the other girls just left, they were my adopted kids, were age 17 and my nieces. Ya, I had girls about the same age...at the time they all left there was my 15 yr old, I had 4 17yr olds, an 18, and 2 19yr olds I definitly had my hands full. All these kids were leaving home and for really no good reason and in the end I had just my two birth girls. I feel like I failed as a mother, a adopted mother and no role model for my nieces, I know I did all I could and people have told me it's not my fault that when the kids reach adulthood it's done they decide what they want to do. You know what though? I never and I mean NEVER thought I was ever going to get to that place where MY children would ever want leave home, cause gosh darn it I was there for them with everything and through everything. I've shed many a tear and I mean MANY these past few years and my own birth children told me I did a fabulous job and that I am a great mother, which brings me to tears, but they told me I did nothing wrong and that they love me with all their heart and that what the girls did was wrong in how they treated us. Now I try really hard to be okay with that but then recently I experienced another blow and this time it was from my middle birth daughter.

She lived in another state and found out she was pregnant and then she got married. She called me up crying and saying she couldn't work anymore, it was just to hard on her and she wanted me to be there for her when she gave birth. She talked about moving here with us cause she was getting treated different by her now new inlaws, she thought it was only fair that we had a grandchild living close to us and she miss me o sooooo. I tried talking her into staying there cause the house was paid for and they had jobs. Weeks went by and all she did was call and cry and finally told me they were moving here. I of course was overjoyed and couldn't wait. I rearranged my home and made room for them. I moved them in here and everything was going great and no problems. I got to be there for her when she gave birth to her first baby girl, gosh that was a awesome experience I'll never forget. She came home and things were great, I was spending time with my new grandbaby, feeding her, talking to her, playing her, I bought her some stuff she needed and I helped my daughter and her hubby as much as I could without interferring. Then one day out of the blue she tells me they are going back. It was so fast and I didn't have time to even let it really sink in that she was leaving...again. I cried and cried a few days and it didn't seem like she cared the least. I gave my granddaughter a kiss and told her I loved her and sometime before I had to leave for an appointment that day they were leaving, my daughter came to me and told me she loved me and that she would come to visit and everything would be ok, I listened but it was just to hard for me. I came and went but they were still here and I went to lay down on my bed cause I just couldn't deal with it all. I had fallen asleep and I got woke up to her kissing my check and saying I love you. I just laid there cause my heart was crushed and it was to hard for me to get up and walk outside just to see them drive off. She was mad at me cause I didn't come out to say good bye, I mean and I thought "What the hell?" I mean I know your there for your kids and I know they grow up and leave home, I know stuff happens but once again I NEVER thought I was gonna get to a point where my children would leave me. I know I fooled myself and that's my fault but there was no reason for her to leave this time.

So that word I picked...Abandoned....as I stood in the kitchen last night on Thanksgiving night cleaning up the dishes talking with my oldest daughter about everything, all of a sudden I started crying and I just can't understand where these tears come from out of no where and I told her that I understood that kids grow up but it was different for me, to me but for some reason I felt like I wasn't needed anymore, that my life is used up now, I have no purpose. I think she brought up about me not making a certain food for Thanksgiving that I had always made before when they were kids and that's when I told her I just didn't feel like it anymore, you know I don't have 8 kids pulling on my shirt telling me, Mommy we want this or that and then I started crying again and told her that I know what it is, the word I've been wanting to fit how I felt and she asked me what it was. I burst into tears and told her, Baby girl I feel ABANDONED by you kids. OMG she gave me the most comforting hug you could ever imagine, and I felt better but it's still painful. Now you may not truely understand why I feel abandoned or maybe you do either way, that's how I feel. Going through what I've been through growing up, people leaving you, no one you can count on, always afraid something bad is about to happen. Now I know my children did not abandoned me, it's just a feeling that I have about them leaving home. I know I should move on, cause damn I'm only 41 and I have a full life a head of me. The problem I face today because I was gonna be, come hell or high water a DAMN GOOD MOTHER, is now I don't have any plans or back up plans. I have so much to give to others but no help, no support and I'm thinking if I had waited to get married and have kids and followed my dreams I wouldn't be feeling this way but I guess the freakin past sometimes interfers with your future, but I will figure out a way to make my dreams come true. I do know this, I would go back in time and do it all over again with my kids because we had a freaking great time and my kids got to be kids. Anyway, I know things will be ok but it's been a hell of a hard knock life for me!