Memories

As we start taking Ash out to play on the climber and in the front yard etc... we are faced with a lot of unintended memories. Hidden beneath the climber where no one could see until exploring hands seek them out are all kinds of treasures that were left there from a time that seems long ago. As she brings up Keagan's toy sword and Codie's holster for his guns we are inundated with thoughts of children we love from a distance. As she holds up a treasure of Hot Wheels that had almost been buried in the front yard we ruefully smile as we think on the yesterdays that we miss so much. I have never touched on the issue of the loss of Codie and Keagan in my blog. In fact we rarely touch on it at home, other than remarking on memories or the likeness of Ashlynn to Keagan. The truth is that for both Dave and I it is a painful topic. The decision that was made to release custody of them was one that was complex and painful. The events that led up to said choice are even more painful, and memories that we don't like to revisit. Still it is a chapter of our life that neither of us can ignore or forget.
I started dating Dave in 2001 and we started getting the boys for regular visitation in 2002. We released the custody of the children in 2007. That gave us five years of working at being a family. Five years of birthdays and Christmases. Five years of summer day trips and visits to church together. It gave us five years that though fraught with the frustrations of a blended family were also filled with the joy of loving each other. In the five years I cradled Keagan and rocked him to sleep. I helped Codie with his homework or crafts. I was the "mother" when they were at our home. Often Codie would come to me with sensitive issues that he didn't know who else to talk to about. We, in many ways, communicated very well. Often Codie would say or do things that said that he resented my presence in his life. Its tough being a kid and seeing your family torn apart and then Dad finds someone else... why couldn't he still be with mom. Keagan and I had an easier relationship. He couldn't remember a time when I was not in his life... and so he accepted it as the way it was and should be.
The one thing that was a certainty from our end is that those boys were loved, more than loved adored. So when things started happening that showed us that the enmity between mom and dad was starting to effect the boys, we tried very hard to minimize that. We tried in what ever way we could. We started standing up for our rights and went to court. We started picking up the children in a neutral location. We did everything that we could with in our power to slow down what felt was the destruction of our relationship with the boys. We tried very hard to ensure that the time in our house was focused on fun and that our words and actions with them were caring. We did so in the hopes that when push came to shove our actions would speak louder than any words that could be said on either side. We tried very hard to respond as positively as we could to comments that would come from the children that were questionable Ex. " My mom says that you lie all the time, and that you never got a black belt in Tae Quan Do." To which we responded that Dave did indeed earn a black belt, and that fact could be verified by either Grandma or Grandpa. Or " My mom says that if you ever paid her the child support that you owed her, she could get us a computer." To which we responded that a set amount of child support was taken from Dave's check each week agreed upon and ordered by the courts. None of these were conversations that we felt were appropriate to have with a child, but once faced with the questions we felt that we had to address them. When we sat Codie down to get to the bottom of some allegations that were made in court that were in our opinion dangerous to our own life ( Ex. that we allowed the children access to X-rated material or that we "made" them sleep on the floor) we were stunned when Codie cried out in a desperate voice finally, " You don't know what it is like. We come home and she sits us down and she asks and asks and asks until we say something about you" We had no clue that this was happening to the children and we were appalled that they had to go through this... but what real power did we have to stop it. Then it all came to a head immediately after that visit, when DCFS was called because, according to the report, we "knowingly with-held and would not allow " Codie to take his medication. We made the tough call that we would stop insisting on our rights to visitation with the boys, hoping that would alleviate some of the stress that was being placed on the boys. The allegations were found to be false and the investigation was closed. But the effect was that we had successfully been removed from the lives of the boys in every way except financial.
When push came right down to shove it had become clear that all of the fighting was having an extremely detrimental effect on the children. When Codie called and told his father that he wanted to be adopted by his mother's new husband, there is little question that it broke Dave's heart. I was here when the phone call came. I was here and I watched Dave cry after he hung up the phone .... it has happened only two other times in our marriage both times at the funerals of our children. It took Dave two weeks to make the decision that would change our lives forever, and they were not an easy two weeks nor was it a decision that was made lightly. I, as his wife, could only stand by and watch him agonize. When he finally made the phone call and agreed to the adoption, it was not an easy call. It also was not the end of his agony... just the end of the indecision. On March 5th 2007 David signed the papers to hand his children off. Less than six months after the death of our son, only a year and a month after the death of our daughter, he took the monumental step to release the only other children he had. It was devastating to him, and the stress of the choice put him in the hospital within a week with a chronic condition he has that seems to be aggravated by stress. While we have come to terms with the fact that the choice made was indeed the right choice, it is still a choice that haunts him. Especially as we were never able to discuss the decision with the boys, and so never able to explain or ensure that they knew that the choice was made out of love.
Make no mistake, this choice WAS made out of love for those boys. Children should not have to focus on the disagreements of their parents, at any age. What happens between two adults should stay with those adults: PERIOD. When you are young your focus needs to be on running and playing, school and chasing girls, not my mom says such and such about my dad and I should hate him for it, or vice-versa. The adults in the situation are just that, adult and should behave as such! They should deal with each other in a responsible way that will not turn a child against the "other parent" That being said, we hoped that since we could not create a responsible situation of shared custody and a shared life, that by removing ourselves from the situation entirely the boys could have some semblance of a normal life. I do not claim that we handled every situation with the boys in the best way possible. In fact, I will be the first to say that in many ways we could have handled a lot of things in a different and perhaps more effective manner. We often wonder if there were different choices that we could have made that may have created a different outcome. It is neither here nor there now, as this is the outcome that we have.
So why do I tell this story and dredge up what seems like ancient history you ask. There are a few things. One: we have a ton of really really good memories of those boys. Memories that as my daughter gets older and more able to comprehend I want to share with her. She has two brothers and she looks more like one of them every day. Some day those children may come back into our lives as adults and when they do so I want her and her sister to know about them. Secondly: some day one of the boys may stumble on this blog and maybe this explanation will have answers that they never knew they needed to find. Maybe they will read this and know that the actions that we took were not selfish... but a decision agonized over and made out of love. Perhaps it is just that I need to be able to get this part of the story off of my chest so that I can move on to the much happier part of sharing the memories that we have of the boys. Perhaps it is a selfish need to put out there to the world that though we made this choice we didn't do it because we wanted to and that we feel guilt over the choice nearly every day even as we become more certain that it was the right decision. Most likely it is a mix of all of it. But from this point forward, every now and then I am going to offer up photos of Codie and Keagan that I have been scanning into the computer and I am going to share a few memories that we have in the hopes of perpetuating the love that we still have for them. And maybe just maybe it will work in our favor when those children are no longer children and they come to see us. I can show them written documentation of the love and memories that we have kept alive.