Having been down on myself and unhappy in my marriage I spent the week not being very nice to anyone in my family. I felt myself distancing myself from those people that were not the root of my anger. Those little people with sweet innocent eyes, wondering why Mommy was only going through the motions. Wondering why there was no love in her actions. I pushed my daughter away as she tried to hug me. Though I saw the pain in her eyes, I did not know how to change what I was feeling. I saw more pain in their little eyes when I served them dinner and turned and walked out of the room and did not join them for their last meal of the day.
For years, I had made such a big deal out of having dinner as a family but during this time of heartache that I was experiencing I just could not bring myself to be with them. I began to resent them. It would be so easy to change my life without having them to think about. And how many times had I heard that I needed to do what was best for the kids. Did nobody care what was best for me?
Then I watched a show on TV that made me realize what I was doing to these poor kids. During this time of self-pity, I was instilling in them a memory, a bad memory that they could look back on and in turn resent me for. I did not want that to happen. I needed to pull myself up by the boot strings and get out of the pity pot. I needed to take control of my own life. Not only for my own sake but for my kids too.
That night I went to sleep with calm thoughts in my head. The issues in my marriage had not been resolved but the issues I had with myself. I knew what I had to do to better my life and my children's too.
The next morning after fixing and eating breakfast with my three wonderful kids, my middle son who is 5-year-old put his arms around me and said "Hey Mom, you're really being nice to us today." What could I say to that tiny face to take away all the pain that I had caused? I looked at his beautiful blue eyes and told him that mommy had not been very happy lately and that I was sorry that I was not being nice.
He looked at me and with the sweetest of voices said" That's OK Mom, I love you!" With that my daughter and younger son had entered the room and joined in on the best hug ever.
I guess the moral to my story is we look at our kids and we think that they do not have feelings or we take those feelings for granted. When things get rough, we think of what are lives would be like without them. How much easier it would be to get the perfect job or drive the perfect car or keep the cleanest house. But without our children none of those things would matter because we would be missing out on the greatest joy, the most perfect gift that we as human beings can give and receive --- unconditional love.
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