Below is an exerpt from my story A Mother’s Betrayal which is awaiting publication and therefore I can’t print the whole thing. The quote I can’t quite remember word for word, basically she said “Don’t worry, I’ll give him back,” talking about my oldest son, born out of wedlock when I was in the service.
Once Sean was born, I had six weeks at home before the Army, in it’s infinite wisdom, required me to go all the way back to Korea for one month! I was floored. I missed my baby terribly and wanted to be as close as possible, yet I was afraid to get out and become a single mother with no real career or man to help me raise him. I then made the decision to reenlist and be stationed close to home at the God awful Ft Hood. That way, I could go home on the weekends and visit him. My mother assured me all was well, and I shouldn’t try to take him yet, I wasn’t ready to be on my own with a baby. Finish the tour and school, she said, and then we would talk about it some more. In my gut I should have known something was up, yet I couldn’t believe she would do to me what her mother had done to her. Still, I carried on working for the weekends when I could come home and take over his care and trusting that she would let me take him when the right time came. Once, before I headed back to Ft Hood, I even asked my dad in private if he thought she’d ever give him to me. He told me not to worry, everything was going to work out.
After a year and a half at Ft Hood, I had injured myself again (I had really bad knees) so they let me out on an honorable medical discharge. I went home and secured a job and my own apartment. Mom still wasn’t ready for me to take my son yet, citing my need to finish school and get my act together. She claimed I still lived too wildly to be a good mother, when really, it was her own insecurities that made her want to take over as the mother figure of his life. She simply was afraid of living alone with my dad, without someone else to care for. Sean filled some void she had in her life and I didn’t understand that until it was too late. One day, she sent me on an errand to get some paperwork signed and notarized, she told me it was something for insurance. I was naive to believe this and as it turned out, it was paperwork for her to legally adopt my son. I was not informed of this decision until I was to get married, when she claimed she would not attend my wedding if I tried to fight her on it. I could not believe the gaul she had, yet had to move on with my plans.
Once we were married, my husband gave me the option of taking her to court and getting custody or moving on and letting things stay like they were. In the end, I chose the latter, Sean was four by then, I was pregnant…again, and I decided I did not want to disrupt his life as he knew it. If I’m honest, the truth is, I didn’t want to ruin our relationship and have her as my enemy for the rest of her life. I had to try to forgive her and move on with my life. She’s gone now and Sean is a grown man. We have an okay relationship, but I always wonder how things would have been, had I been given the chance to raise him on my own.
