Now that the divorce is final, I suddenly became aware of rooms in my house that had sealed memories. Silly how events will make you block out things from right in front of you. I understand love does the same thing. Anyway, I began to clean. One room revealed proof of events long passed, of photographs and pictures drawn by MY children, items that caressed the back of my mind and gave hope that they loved me. One photo showed RR at eight years in an excellent karate strike pose. You could easily envision him becoming the next Steven Segal ... and even better! This was at a time when my family was here and we were a team. My efforts meant something absolutely, or so it felt. Fast forward to his twelfth birthday. My children had been living in Georgia for a couple of years and their mother said that she had been training them, especially since she was a karate instructor ... a 220 pound instructor. They had come back to North Carolina for some special event that my ex's instructor had put on. During this performance, Ronnie was to break a board in two. He tried. Yet it was evident that he had not been trained. My heart broke. I wanted so much to spare him of his embarrassment as he tried repeatedly to break the board but couldn't.
Have you ever had a moment and felt the cross road of a multitude of events crash upon you? I knew that my "wife" wasn't doing what she said ... at so many levels. I felt and still feel a shame that I let my dearest son down. Since then, it has only been downhill.
RR, I don't know if you will ever read these words ... hopefully you won't learn more of my inner stupidity. Now, you're at eighteen. Have too many years passed without my influence? Not that my influence is necessarily better. Yet it would be a contrast to what you had to go through these past five years. The world does not owes us a living. We do have to take charge of our lives. And, as you might have noticed, we do have to correct our past choices. At the same time, I'm fighting to not be a victim of my past choices or of the status quo.
I'm writing this to you because my father died as I was finally get a chance to talk to him on a level that I couldn't as a dependent. Can I help you bypass all the mistakes that I made? You don't have time!
I don't know if you really know this but I love you. Of course, this applies to your sister and brother too. But this is a special message to you. I will try to amend this so that you will know.
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