Today is a very special day. Probably not for the reason you are thinking, as you read this. Yes, it is Hannah's 6th birthday today, and that post will come later. But since this other special day came first, it deserves to come first.
It was 9 years ago, February 21st, 2002. It was a warmish day in Pine Grove, PA, with spring in the air. While Noah napped in his room, I walked up to the mailbox, hoping for something other than a handful of bills.
What I found that day changed the rest of my life in ways I never could have comprehended that afternoon.
But first, a little of the back story that brought us to live in Pine Grove, PA at that time...
It is no secret that Brian and I had a rough few years at the beginning of our marriage. We were both so young (18) and really had no business getting married with the baggage we were both carrying. But we did get married, and while I tried to set up a happy little home (snort), Brian was out...pretending he wasn't married. Sorry, there is no delicate way to say that. He was staying out late, partying, and sleeping with other women. I don't say that to make you all think horrible things about my husband, for he is not that person at ALL anymore, but to understand how we got to this day walking to the mailbox, you have to know what came before. And it was ugly.
So. We ended up separated in the spring of 2001, and back together at the end of the summer, when Noah was 18 months old. At that point, everything was out on the table, Brian admitted he had been a complete _______________ (fill in the blank with whatever nasty word you'd like...but remember, this is not the Brian of today). I had some requirements to us getting back together: 1) We had to move away. The influences here in NY were out of control and I wanted to remove them from his life. 2) We had to attend church as a family. And 3) He had to work. Full-time. No excuses. He agreed, went to school for a few months to learn to drive a tractor trailer, got a job driving out of Carlisle, PA, and we moved to Pine Grove on our 3rd anniversary...January 1, 2002.
Life had been rocky, but it was going to be good now. We began to heal, to learn to work together, learned to be parents as a team, and having only each other to rely on was a big part in that. Then something incredible happened. I found a church for us to attend (remember, requirement 2), and on Brian's second time there, February 3rd, he was moved by the Spirit of the Living God, and accepted Christ as his Savior!
WOOHOO!!! Now life would be really good! The past was behind us, and the future was bright.
Back to the mailbox...
There was an envelope from County Family Court. Weird. Not even the county we had lived in. And it was thick. As I opened it, my heart beat faster until I felt nauseous. Blah, blah, blah, appear on this date, to answer these charges...you are the putative father of Nicolas S. C------, date of birth 2-7-01, whose mother is J----- C-------. Putative? I didn't even know what that word meant, but the rest of it was pretty clear. Brian had another son. Maybe. Noah had a brother. Maybe. I had a stepson. Maybe.
I walked in the house, shaking, glad Noah was still sleeping. Quickly, I called Brian's sister. Yes, she was the first one to know. I asked her if she knew this woman, and she didn't. I asked her to please not say anything to anyone, and she agreed.
Ironically, it was the day Brian was coming in from the road for a few days, and Noah and I went to pick him up at the truck terminal an hour away. I probably wasn't fit to drive, alternating between crying and shaking. My nice, neat world was falling apart before my eyes.
I meant to wait to say anything until we were all in the car. But I couldn't, and my tear-stained face gave me away anyway. The first words out of my mouth were, "Do you know J---- C-----?" He didn't deny it. But it's not like I hadn't known. I knew there were other women. The past was behind, forgiven, gone. Until all of a sudden, it wasn't gone, and turns out, never really would be.
What followed was a lot of pain, a lot of tears, a lot of what ifs, and five months later, when we got to meet Nick, a lot of love. And a lot of healing. And learning what real forgiveness is. It was not easy, and sometimes still is not easy.
Truth be known, had I known then the agony of today, of being kept from MY son, Nicolas, of seeing my other kids miss him desperately, I might have demanded we not have anything to do with him. But there is a reason we don't know what lies ahead for us in life...probably many reasons, most of which we may never know. But I know that the decisions we made then to be in his life as fully as we could be, which led us to move back to NY only 8 months after we had left "for good", were and are the right decisions.
I can't imagine my life without that little boy. My little boy. I never went through labor with him, but the anguish of the heart was more than enough to count him as my own.
