It's ok

The hardest things are not the things you'd realize right away.
I talk a lot in public about how my daughter is coping and about how various family members are dealing with our loss.  This is my place.

Sure, I think every parent at some time or another thinks, "I should get away from here." Some fantasize about just an hour, or a week away from their kids, some longer.  My fantasy was a day or two in the woods completely by myself hiking.  Only the skill of my wit and outdoors training.
Spoiler alert on how that would have ended: I have no outdoors training to speak of.  I am a pack a day smoker, do not remember to hydrate myself or feed myself on a regular basis, until I get sick or pass out.

I think one of the hardest things about this whole scenario is that there are not training manuals written for it.  There are no self help books for it.  You are alone, out to sea, grieving.  When people talk about their kids, (which most parents do, and most folks in the work force now a days ARE parents,) you are stuck deciding if you want to tell them that you have kids, or not.  And they'll ask the kids ages, and you stumble on it because you haven't seen them in so long.

Over time, their names and birthdates become marks on a page.  There are no pictures, and the best you get are pictures from your facebook from 3 years ago or more.

And sometimes you'll break down and tell these co workers all you have experienced, and they stare at you, mouth agape, not sure what to say.

After a while, you try to help them and say "no one knows quite what to say about all of it, but really I'm ok.  I'm coping."  You comfort back.  You've been living this for so long now that you are numb to it.

When in truth, on the inside you feel like running back to your office and crying.  You gulp down that slight moment of unexplained asthma; that feeling you get just before you break down into a hysterical fit where you can't breathe.  And you choke, cough, and move on with your day.  You hope no one notices your mis-step.

No one wants to see you sad.  No one wants to see you cry, but that's all you can think to do in that moment.  However, you are at work, in a cube farm where every conversation is overheard.  You play the fun girl, you play the party girl, you get involved in all sorts of work place politicking because you aren't afraid to make an ass of yourself.
ANYTHING to distract you from that asthma.  Anything to stop the pain momentarily.
You tell your boss you have comp time, (because you do) and you leave inexplicably in the middle of very average, very normal days, because you just can't today.

And your psychologist tells you it's just a "situational depression" But, the situation is still going on in the periphery of your life.  It hangs over you like a cloud.  But you are an ADULT damn it, so you are going to adult so hard that no one has ever seen such an adult.

But then, the sadness sneaks in again, and you try to find another distraction.

Just save it until you can deal with it, or until the situation clears up.  But it never clears up.  It is in a lot of ways worse than the death of a child.  At least then, you know there is no possibility of running into them with their new parents on the other side of town.  You don't worry about why the adoptive parents need a police escort and wonder silently if someone has been threatening them or your children-- sorry, their children.
If someone is dead, they can simultaneously be the safest they'll ever be, and also the most unsafe.
They are not alive anymore.  There is no possibility of reunification.  I could get a call tomorrow that the adoptive parents have had a radical change of heart, and my hiatus is over.
I could get the call next week, next month, next year.... or I could never get it.  Limbo, and not the fun kind where you dress in Hawaiian Luau gear and lean under a stick.

I mean yes, as far as I know my kids are healthy and safe, but like any mother I worry when I'm not around.  I don't see them, there are no pictures up on facebook anymore, I'm blocked from any of their other social media, (they shouldn't have any at their age, but they do, but again, I'm not their parent anymore.) 
I have literally NO contact, no way to know if they are ok.  The best I get is when I write to the accused and he tells me how they are doing... because he gets to talk to them on the telephone.
Yes, that's right, the pedophile ex gets to talk to his kids on the phone, but I don't.  

I don't dare alienate him if I ever want to hear about ANYTHING going on in my kid's lives.

If I want my daughter to be happy and healthy, I am not supposed to speak to him, even her superficial knowledge that I have contacted him makes her very upset, she often acts out after finding out about it, (whether or not I tell her, she knows.)  

I have not yet contacted him since the case is over.  I don't want to start it up again for my daughter.  I feel worse for her than I do for myself at this point, those were her brothers, and she loved them more than anything.  Sure, they got on her nerves, but she really truly felt they hung the moon.

Before you shout how unfair it is... because no doubt, it isn't fair, remember something important.  Shouting that it isn't fair doesn't suddenly make the fair police come out and make things equal and correct.  Being fair doesn't mean justice gets served.  Being fair is a judgement.  What you judge fair I may not judge fair.  Justice, like all of the best things in the world, is subjective.

No vote, no world leader, no higher ranking officer can make this right.

I could write to the President of the US and he couldn't do anything to help.  It just is.  And, believe it or not, that's ok.

I miss my sons.  I cry for them every day at least for 5 minutes.  I know however that this has happened for some reason that I won't understand until several years in the future.

I just have to be patient and wait...Any day now...Any day now.

The things that take you by surprise... A song you used to listen to with the kids in the car comes on unexpectedly, sometimes it triggers a pain in your chest and a deep crying fit, sometimes you smile and think of the past, a time when all you needed to do was turn around to see the smiling little boy in his car seat.

It's ok, this happened for some reason.  I must be selfless.  My kids need stability more than they need me.  It becomes a mantra.

It's ok.  It's ok.  And believe it or not, over time, it is ok.  We are playing our roles in fate.  And for those who do not believe in fate, what has happened cannot unhappen.  I can't just wish this away.  So we come to the same mantra.

It is ok.