The brother that isn't...

One thing I haven't shared much about is the revelation I received around Christmas time that around the time that my ex chose to sign away his parental rights to the children we had together while we were married he also took on a new wife. Knowing D as I do I knew that he either had a live in girl friend or was remarried - he is the epitamy fo codependant and can not be alone. Not to mention his lack of ability to remain monogamous during our marriage meant that he wasn't likely to be sitting around focusing on making things right in his life but rather doing anything he could to fill the empty places in his soul that God can fill. Instead of allowing God to fulfill him he turns to things, people, and sex.

My greatest fear was not that he would remarry. That was a given and I can only wonder about what kind of woman would choose to marry a man who pretends at Christianity while turning his back on his children and purses instant gratification at every turn. What kind of a story has he told her? What lies has his family participated in? I am totally curious, but I have very little pitty. Whoever she is she is an adult who jumped in with both feet and is now in over her head. I know that if it were me I would have wanted to talk to the ex wife or at least see some proof that his story is as he said. Before Gene and I married I poured over hundreds of pages of court documents, psychiatrist reports, and statements from various GAL's and visitation supervisors. I knew exactly what I was getting into and I knew that I wasn't being sold a fraudulent bill of goods.

No, my greatest fear was children.

Emelia has voiced to me over and over the last several years her deep concern that Dave would marry again and in her words "do this to another family". She was saddened by her own situation, but she has been covered with so much love and grace that she doesn't fear for herself.

What hasn't occured to either Emelia or Elijah is the thought that those children would biologically be related to them. Siblings but not siblings. Growing up on totally seperate coasts, living totally seperate lives, knowing each other only in pictures... if that.

That day came this Christmas. A 2ish year old little boy who bares only a slight resemblance to my children and who's mother bares an eery resemblance to me (based on the 1 photo we've seen). According to D, his son R knows about Emelia and Elijah and has pictures of them in his bedroom. (Where D and his wife H got those pictures is beyond me.)

I think that's just cruel. "... And these are the children daddy used to have but didn't want any more. They live all the way in Virginia and no I'm sorry but they wont come and visit you and no I'm sorry we wont be going to visit them. Good night..." There is no way that a child will not develop fears of his own, whether expressed or unexpressed, that one day daddy will decide that he isn't worth keeping either.

And Emelia and Elijah give little thought to R. Why should they? They have no relationship with R's father or family and haven't since they were very small. Perhaps a certain curiosity will grow when they reach adulthood, but it will never go much below the surface. They will never be able to have the relationship with R that they have with each other and the 3 other siblings that they are growing up with. None of the memories, none of the same loved ones, nothing. They'll have less than Joshua and Luke have with their birth mother's daughter who they at least know in part, although the relationship is very shallow and the experiences very scant.

Such is the consequence of sin. What a travesty.