The Power of an Apology.

I am a product of divorce.  Two of them.  And half you you reading this probably are too.  Doesn't that make you sick to your stomach?  This society is losing sight of all morals ever established.

Yesterday was my little sister's graduation.  Something I can't believe came and went.  She will do great things, and I hope she runs with them and does what SHE wants.  That event kind of triggered these posts.  I stood in the kitchen looking at photos, begging myself not to cry because I didnt want to take the spotlight off of her day.  Those pictures captured smiles.  And a lot of those pictures I could bring back to life in my thoughts.  Our old, hyper lab Maddy.  Photos of her softball games with her missing teeth.  Photos of my wedding.  Photos of her friends.  I beat myself up all the time for not being a better sister.  I wish I could have done things different.  I wish I would have known how to do things different, but none of us did.  Between my mom working all the time to pay for sports that we wanted to play and us being in and out of the house playing those sports, it almost seemed like there wasn't time to be taught how to deal with anger and frustration.  How to deal with sadness and fear.

My mom and dad got divorced when I was in third grade. It almost seems like a movie.  I remember trying to distract my sister as things were being moved out, so she wouldn't understand like I did.  At that time, I just knew things were not good with Mommy and Daddy and we were going to try to start over, with them trying to share us.  But when you see your Mom crying, is that really what you want?  Do you want her to share you with someone who seems to be making her so upset?  I didn't.  I wanted my mom.  But deep in my heart, I wanted Dad too.  The next few years were crazy.  They tried to work it out, more than once.  I really think deep down they wanted a family, but knew that communication was a huge barrier, and so was trust.  They both had a lot of baggage.  Mom had me at 17, so growing up was a must.  Who has time to work on themselves though when you have a child to take care of?  You just want a family for them, and the rest will come along, right?  One of the last happy memories I have was going to Kings Island, with the both of them.  I was in the 5th grade and they let me take my "boyfriend".  Everyone had so much fun.  But you can't keep pushing things under the rug.  Eventually someone will have too much dust to put under there.  There was abuse.  Both ends.  Emotional and Physical.  I remember begging my mom to leave him.  I just knew that it wasnt going to work, as much as any of us wanted it to.  So, they divorced, and I chose to not have a relationship with my dad.  There is a lot of meat that I should go in place of this sentence, but it would take years for me to explain why.  I knew he had anger issues, and I just wanted to be there for my mom.  And I was.  For 18 years.

It wasnt until Christmas Eve of 2010 that I called my Dad to say I wanted to come to Christmas Eve.  And I did.  I called Devon as I was in the shower, asking him what he thought.  And then I eventually said, can you just say I support you and push me to go?  He did.  I was just 2 or so months pregnant, and Alyvia went with me too.  I took the annual letter that I always right, which broke the news that he was going to be a grandpa of 2.  This was the same day he met his first grandkid.  I am sure it was a lot for him to take in, I could see it in his face.  The next time we went over, I took Dev.  He never met him before that.  I was so nervous because he and my dad are so much the same; they say what they think and dont think twice about it.  Right off the bat, my Dad apologized.  I never heard that from him before, as far as I could remember.  He admitted he made mistakes; he admitted he should have been there; he explained why he wasn't, but acknowledged more than once that if he could have done it again, he would.  From that moment to this day, he has not done one thing to hurt me, or most importantly, my family.  He has not lied, he has not bailed on me, he has not ditched my kids because he was afraid he'd feel uncomfortable with the other people at the birthday party.  This is something I have prayed about my entire life, and for whatever reason, that Christmas Eve, a step was taken in the right direction.  I know we cannot make up for the time lost.  The little girl inside of me wishes we could.  I see Devon and Alyvia bond every day almost, and I wish I could have experienced that.  But before I get mad, the only thing I remember is the apology.  Not but's, no it wasn't my fault...just an I'm sorry.  That made the difference.

If you ask my husband, he will tell you that I do not apologize when I'm wrong.  In five years, I have whole heartedly apologized maybe 10 times.  That means, without an excuse.  A whole hearted apology does not include an excuse, especially when that excuse is something to make YOU feel better about the mistakes YOU made.  THIS is my BIGGEST struggle right now.  I wish I had the balls to publically post some of the text messages that have been exchanged between me and my mom.  People say, "you can forgive other people, but cant forgive your Mom?!"  I will tell you, every single apology Ive been given, about ANYTHING, not just the things in my recent post, has always had a BUT.  And has ALWAYS been in a text.  Or has been something along the lines of... "I have apologized before Megan."  No.  But that is what I want; no, that is what I need in order to move on in some way.  Recognition of what was wrong, and that I am allowed to hurt.  You see?  That is the difference.  It's pretty powerful.