Life As Deb Knows It!!!!!!: We May Not Be Normal, But We Are Family

First of all, Happy Mother's Day to any of the mom's that may stumble across this post. Today is a special day for all the moms around and I hope all of them are enjoying their families.'s

Mother's Day has had a bittersweet meaning to me over the past 8 years. Most of you know that my marriage to my boys' dad ended in a rather unpleasant divorce 13 years after we were married. Most of you also know that as a result of that divorce, my boys have not lived with me for the past 8 years other than coming to visit every-other weekend and the other arrangements we have made. Many of those Mother's Days during those years, were not on my weekend with the boys and so I didn't see them. That has changed over the years, as wounds have healed and life has moved on. Being a mom was all I ever wanted to be when I was growing up, And I mean, ALL I ever wanted to be. I had no desire to go to college, but my parents thought it was a good idea, and I never wanted to have a career other than being the best stay at home mom I could be. I always wanted 4 kids, and I did not care if they were boys or girls. It is sickening to hear, I am sure, but I just wanted to stay at home, a home with a white picket fence if possible and an old home, have babies, feed them homemade organic food, help them with their homework, have the house all the neighborhood kids wanted to hang out at and just be the best mom ever!!!! Needless to say, that didn't turn out the way I had planned. I did get my 4 beautiful boys and for a while I even succeeded at some of the other stuff, but somewhere along the way, things went horribly wrong. The blame lies in both my ex-husband and me, but unfortunately the boys were the ones who suffered the most. I swore I would never put my children through the horrible experience that I was sure divorce would be, but when it came down to it, that is exactly what I did.

Over the past 8 years, I have been through therapy to deal with the enormous amount of guilt I have over the failure of my marriage and the subsequent failure of a mother I believed myself to be. I have beat myself up and down over it, and every time one of my children makes a bad decision or chooses a wrong path to go down, I blame myself and say to myself that if only their dad and I hadn't gotten a divorce, that would have never happened. That is an exhausting way to live and quite frankly, it sucks the life right out of a person. I have always been known as the happy face in the crowd, the person who is never down and is always up beat. And for the most part, I am. But for a long time, I was really good at showing that person on the outside, while on the inside, I was crumbling apart, bit by bit.

The one thing I know for sure about the past 8 years is that my kids never for a moment ever doubted my love for them. I had no shame in letting them know that I made a lot of mistakes and me not living with them was because of mistakes I made, not because of anything they ever did. The 11 years I was at home with my children, I dedicated every minute of every day to them. I think that is the best thing I could have ever done because it laid the foundation for how our relationship would be once I was no longer living with them, though I had no idea at the time that that's what I was doing. My children know that they are still the center of my world, and there is not a thing I would not do for them. I wish that they didn't have to say that they are from a "broken" home but I love the fact that they can say their home was fixed. Gary and I didn't get back together, I am remarried, about to celebrate my 1 year anniversary, and Gary is newly engaged to a wonderful woman whom I could not have hand picked any better to be my kids step-mom.

We have come a long way from where we were 8 years ago. It has been a painful journey, but filled with laughter along with the many tears. I use to think a real family was one where the mom and dad lived happily ever after together, the kids stayed out of any real trouble and there were fresh baked cookies at all times. Now I have learned the hard way, that a family has many different faces and the only one thing necessary to make it a family, is for there to be unconditional love. My kids know they have that from both their dad and me for them, and that is all that matters. And so in that respect, we are a perfectly normal family and I can happily celebrate Mother's Day with my kids and feel good about the mom that I am.

I would like to take one more moment to just thank my very closest friends who never gave up on me and never stopped believing in the mom that I am. When I was my own worst enemy, you all were there to help pull me up and make me believe in myself. Without you, I would not have made it this far and you continue to help me each day. And to my amazing husband and step-dad to my kids, thank you for being the person you are and seeing the good in me. You love my kids as if they were your own and for that I am eternally grateful.

Happy Mother's Day to all you moms, no matter what type of mom that may be.

My babies circa 2000. When I still lived with them.