at first, i didn't want all this to be so public. but, i do appreciate those of you who have talked to me about this whether on the phone or e-mail and have told me who you are. maybe this will be seen by the right person.
i've taken all the advice i can. let me tell you, my decision has not been a rash one. as you'll see in my reply to tom's e-mail below, it's been a long time coming.
Mathew,
I don’t mind taking a turn in the reality check for a bit. While I have my moment of fame let me provide some additional personal information for the fodder, which is that I have a son who is 26 years old.
I don’t have a relationship with my son as I figure the ball is in his court now that he is an adult and can make his own choices of who he wants in his life. I just can’t keep hitting a brick wall any more; (the groveling) the list of my wrongs goes on and on.
There are so many things I could have done differently as a father. The word is hard to use, because it does not apply to me. I have so many “could haves, would haves and should haves”. I should have stayed in my home town and took any job that was available in order to be a “father” to my son every weekend.
Oh, but I did not want to work at a gas station in a small town with few good jobs in order to go fishing with my son on weekends. Instead, I chose a high tech career the promotions, traveling the world and living in Europe. I thought phone calls and visits a few times a year were enough. I did not know where he was living at times and had to find out through school transfer records, but I found him and then took him out shopping for the holidays.
I always told him “what is the one thing I never want you to forget?” He would say “that you love me”. I was always honest with him about what I am and also believed that was enough. I could not understand why he always seemed to have a “chip” on his shoulder, carrying around this sense of entitlement of “I’m owed” and this man that for some reason thinks he is my father is going to have to grovel if he wants to be part of my life.
I thought I tried to do the best I could with the tools that I had to work with and he would understand because that was enough. One of the last times we spoke he said that he did me a favor by taking my phone calls over the years.
My mom and dad used to say: “wait until you have kids” as a young man I knew they did not know what they were talking about. It was an awesome experience to hold my son for the first time in the delivery room, I thought bonding and the biological parenting instinct was only something that happened to mothers.
Believe me, he had every toy he wanted, we went snowmobiling, fishing and camping, for the 5 years we were all together. However, in the last few years no matter how many times I’ve tried to call him and tell him I love him, I know I failed him as a Father and I’m going to be paying for that a very long time. I can tell you first hand that “pay backs are a bitch”.
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hey tom...
i know about your son and when you've trusted me with conversations about him, i've listened. it bothers me - as it does you - that you are in the situation you're in with your son. i wish things were different.
i'm not certain if your e-mail was intended to compare my and my mothers relationship with your and your sons... but if so, it's apples and oranges.
the main difference is this: although you did everything you could for your son, he's not responding. you see, my mother is not doing anything but garnering sympathy from the masses.
as i've told you... i was practically the black sheep. my step-father physically and emotionally abused me all my life under the blind eye of my mother. there were few times i slept at home. instead, i was at friends, a neighbors, aunts, grandparents or wherever i could find solice.
there was never a time when we took a family vacation. hell, we didn't even eat at the dinner table together. most times, i'd eat in my room alone.
at thirteen, i moved in with my grandmother to take care of her. you saw how close her house was to my mother's trailer. now imagine her not even walking across the yard to check on either of us. it happened.
at sixteen, nana died. i lived there until a brawl between charles and i sent me to my other grandmother's. keep in mind that i was continuing to get social security checks from my father's death yet my mother was refusing either grandmother the money. it was those two elderly people who had to fit me into the limited budgets.
and that they did. they paid for school clothes, school trips, gymnastics uniforms, school pictures... everything i needed. back then, too, my mother would not even pick up the phone to call me. even when i made the third highest s.a.t. score in my school, it was i who had to borrow a neighbors vehicle and literally beg my mother to attend the awards banquet.
fast forward to college, something my mother actually discouraged, not encouraged. i was left there to rot. her husband told her i was getting government grants to go and she believed him over me. in reality, i wasn't getting anythng but loans, which paid barely for tuition and books.
in statesboro, jobs were scarce. i applied at every fast food restaurant in town yet never heard a word. i had to settle for working for the school newspaper, which only paid $.32 per column inch i wrote. after winning awards -- i called to share that with my mother only to be told she had to take another call -- i made it up to $1 per column inch. it didn't even pay my rent.
my grandmother i mentioned earlier... she made $40 a month baby-sitting. she sent me $20. my mother sent me nothing.
so, begging for her approval, i left college and moved back home to work at walb. with my noteriety, she came around a bit but only when i'd go see her. however, things quickly went back to normal. i called to tell her when my first-ever story would air. she said she'd watch. i called at 6:30 to ask what she thought only to be told that charles was watching another channel and did not want to turn it.
it was near that time that i finally realized that i would be happier without her and my not bending over backwards to please her than i would be with her realizing nothing i could do could change her mind.
i decided that it was her turn to come to me. it was her time to realize that she had a son that loved her beyond belief. it was her time to fit me into her life as she saw fit.
that's where we're still at today, tom. it's her turn. i want to see her, hug her and tell her and that i love her. i want to tell her i'm sorry for making this decision although i believe it's best. i want to pour out everything i've done while i've been away.
but before i can do that, i want her to know she's hurt me as badly as i've hurt her. if she can do that and promise to just try to be the mother i know she can be, then things will all be alright. but not before.
mathew
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