Was also really great to see both of them in the August newsletter for their school – my son for participating in a fundraiser with his lacrosse team for cancer research and my daughter for singing with her choir at graduation. How cool to be able to perform at your own graduation!
Nothing makes me happier than seeing how much my son looks EXACTLY like me, although it is a bit like looking in a time warped mirror. No escaping the fact that my kids are Chapmans. In fact, this summer I got to see my Aunt Dawn, who I haven’t seen in many years because she lives out of town, and I was stunned at how much my daughter looks like her. To be fair, my daughter also looks a lot like her mother and grandmother on her mother’s side, but she’s also very much a Chapman. Particularly her blue eyes, the shape of her face and her body.
In addition to seeing my Aunt Dawn, I got to spend a lot of time this summer in Naples visiting family. Aunt Dawn brought all of my cousins with her so there were a ton of kids playing in the pond at Uncle Hugh & Aunt Lori’s camp, including some kids my kids have never even met, my cousins’ kids. I still remember the fish my son caught in that pond. Such a fight it broke his pole! The kids came prepared with their dirt bikes and 4-wheelers. I couldn’t believe how good they were on them, especially the little girls! They do spend a lot of time camping though and a bunch of them are home schooled, so they learn different things….useful things like how to drive and be responsible with motor vehicles. Just so ya know, I was the first to spot and call out the Swiss Cheese church, every time, on the beautiful drive down to Naples :) That ride never gets old, it’s breathtaking. I also took the 4-wheeler down to my Dad’s old cabin and grabbed a bunch of rocks out of the stream for my garden. The lawn chairs are still there sitting by the stream. Dad sold the place years ago and the guy who bought it got transferred with his job a few months after buying it. Now it only gets used a couple times a year when they vacation there. Such a shame. Wish I could have bought it just to keep it in the family. Lots of great memories with my kids there. They loved that place.
I also got to spend a lot of time with my Dad and step mom this year. They visited for 3½ weeks and stayed with me. It’s really nice being able to spend that time with him, it’s the only time we see each other during the year since they moved to Florida a few years back and sold the cabin. Dad is doing good, his health is recovering but he is getting rather forgetful and that makes me so sad. There were a lot of family parties, including several in Naples, a BBQ at my house, and my step brother’s son’s graduation from high school. My step-nephew Zack is the same age as my daughter. He will be going to MCC this coming fall. He’s not sure what he wants to study, so he’s just going to knock off his gen-ed courses and figure out what excites him. He works in the family restaurant in Webster when he’s not in school. My niece Rachel on the other hand knows exactly what she wants to do. She wants to study Forensics. She’s just now going into her junior year of high school and is looking around at colleges that offer soccer scholarships, probably here in the US. She’s a phenomenal soccer player and should be able to get some serious cash for college that way, she is being heavily recruited. My niece Sydney is going into her second year of college studying Therapeutic Recreation while living at home and working at the skating center in her town. She loves it and is also looking at opportunities to transfer into a US college, possibly near here. Would be great to have her stay with me for a year or two while she goes to school.
Speaking of schools, my 30th high school reunion was this year. Hard to believe it’s been that long, and yet it was definitely long ago. I saw a lot of people 5 years ago at my 25th reunion, but 30 years is a game changer. I couldn’t believe how many people were divorced, remarried, had kids and step kids, and more importantly were there with their new partners and getting along fine and having a great time joking around and telling stories with their former spouses and their new partners. Really made me smile that for as many people that go through bitter nightmare divorces, there are equal numbers of mature adults that behave otherwise. Those are the kinds of examples that children (even adult children) should see, so they know the world doesn’t have to be so black and white….all or nothing….exclusive control versus sharing….mine versus yours.
Lastly I would like to share with you a letter I got from my daughter last month. It was the first note and communication from her since her mom and I divorced in early 2008 when she was 11. I sent her a gift package for her graduation and it came back to me, fully opened and all the unwrapped presents still in the same box I sent it in, with this note written on the back of the card I sent her. It broke my heart and made me very sad. Sad that my daughter would say such a thing and be so disrespectful. It definitely didn’t feel like something the sweet young lady I raised would say nor did it reflect the Christian values that she was brought up with. I am completely perplexed on many levels, the first being that she turned 18 two months before she graduated, why wait until graduation to return gifts? Why not send back the 18th birthday gifts? In fact, if my gifts and love for her were so bothersome, why not send all the previous gifts over the years back? No need to wait until she was 18 to assert herself. She’s been asserting herself since the day she was born, why wait for a certain moment. The other thing that surprises me is that she even sent back the money I sent her for school. Now I have no idea if she is even going to college, but in any event, what 18 year old doesn’t want cash – none that I know. Once I got over the initial shock of her letter, I realized that it really didn’t make any difference at all. She is still my daughter and I love her with all my heart, always will, no matter what, unconditionally. You can’t unlove a daughter, or a son for that matter, any more than you can unlove your mom, your brother or sister, your grandparents, or your father. They are your flesh and blood, a part of you. Your family will always be your family….you can’t send them back.
My hope for my daughter, and my son, is that they never have to experience this kind of hurt and rejection from their own children someday. I hope they choose wisely when they choose the person they will marry and start a family with, and should something go wrong (heaven forbid) and their marriage falls apart, I hope the person they once loved enough to have children with will not tell outrageous stories to wrestle control and access to their children away from them and manipulate the hearts and minds of young children too vulnerable and isolated to know what is happening to them. I hope they will be close enough to their children that their kids will be able to distinguish self-imposed martyrdom from reality and be strong enough to stand up on their own two feet and love both parents. It’s so important on so many levels.
