After Blue Eyes’ brother passed, there was a little 15 month old boy left behind. Blue Eyes spent as much time with that boy as he possibly could, it was good for both of them. Blue Eyes helping to fill an empty void in the little boy’s life, the stark absence of a father he barely got to know, and the little boy doing the same for Blue Eyes. A precious reminder of a boy, a brother, Blue Eyes once adored.
At the unveiling of the brother’s headstone, nearly a year after his death, the family got together and embraced the little boy. Even the grandparents who had previously disowned him decided that as much as they despised his mother, they would not, in fact, abandon their grandchild. At this point, their presence in the life of the little boy hindered the relationship Blue Eyes had with him. The mil and sil were soon fighting over the little boy. Blue Eyes needed to abandon the situation. It was toxic. The widow quickly turned to the in-laws for guidance, no doubt thinking somehow she would be able to talk them in to giving her some of their money to support their grandchild. At this point, the petite 30 year old, who had grown up penniless in a small town in China, was a millionaire. There was also a hefty trust set up for the little boy and his education. Somehow that wasn’t good enough for her, and probably never will be.
Exactly one week after d-day, the widow called our home saying she desperately wanted the little boy to have a relationship with Blue Eyes. At this point the little boy was nearly four years old and hadn’t seen Blue Eyes for almost two years. The widow said she wanted to bring the little boy to us and have him spend a few hours with us at our house. We were confused. Both Blue Eyes and I were physically sick with head colds and again, it was only one week from d-day. I was a walking zombie. We agreed because the widow sounded so desperate. As it turns out, not only did the little boy appear sick himself, but the widow arrived at our house with her new male friend, another middle-aged Jewish attorney. They were using us as babysitters. They dropped the little boy at our house in the morning, and headed off to a birthday party at a winery about 45 minutes from our house. When they left, they said they would return at about 9:00pm! The little boy was sad. He was standing there with three adults, me, Blue Eyes, and Sammy, three virtual strangers. He wouldn’t eat, he wouldn’t use the potty, he wouldn’t talk. We took him to the toy store. He didn’t want anything, but we purchased him a race track with cars and a building set anyway. We don’t have a lot of toys left over at our house except Sammy’s extensive hot wheel car collection and a huge collection of Brio Train sets. We tried to take the little boy to lunch, but again he wouldn’t eat. His eyes were so sad. He definitely missed his mom, but it seemed like something more to me. He just had sad eyes. We took him to a big field and ran around with him and he sort of played soccer with Sammy. We took him home and he perked up a little with all the toys. He wouldn’t leave Sammy’s side. Sammy and Blue Eyes had previously scheduled hair appointments in the middle of the afternoon. The little boy stayed back with me. He kept saying he wanted Sammy. He cried a little. I held him. He fell asleep in my lap. When he woke up, he was disoriented and he looked scared. Sammy was home by then and they played some kid friendly video games. This perked the little boy right up and he was willing to eat a half of a peanut butter sandwich and drink some milk. It got dark and he started asking for his mother. We told him she would be there soon. By about 9:00pm, he seemed completely comfortable with us and was feeling much better. He was laughing and running around and playing with our pets. His mother and her boyfriend showed up at 11:00pm and quickly whisked the little boy away. They were heading downtown to a hotel and wanted to know if we would join them for breakfast the next morning. We declined the invitation.
The little boy will be six years old this coming February. He has started school. He is playing soccer. We have not seen him since he was at our house. I see pictures of him and his mother on Facebook. He is growing fast. The mil and sil fight over him. We know this from when we were on speaking terms with sister. Even though the widow has a lot of money, if anyone wants to see the little boy, they have to fly them both down to Los Angeles, or the family has to fly up to them. Whoever pays for the airfare, tickets to Disneyland, etc… (whether it be the in-laws, or the sister) are the ones that get all the time with the little boy. They won’t let the other see him on their dime. The in-laws were up north visiting the little boy in August. Mil sent an email to all of us (even though we had had no contact with her for 18 months at this point) saying they were expecting us all up there (as if nothing had happened). We didn’t answer the email.
No contact with the family means no contact with anyone in the family. Even a little contact with any of them means the door gets flung wide open. We had to leave the little boy behind. I secretly hope there will be a time and a place in the future where we can reconnect with the little boy, who won’t be little anymore. For now, we watch from afar.
try not to cry on my rainbow 
We left a little boy behind, too, Kat. A bright, cheeky, ill-disciplined (not his fault) loving little boy who adored Rog. He is collateral damage that we couldn’t save. I even wished Rog had left me to go live with her, just so that little boy had a nurturing, caring step-parent in his life. But that little boy never stood a chance. His mother only got pregnant with him to have, in her words, “a little girl to dress up and share my life with.” Damn. She got a boisterous, clever little boy who pushed all her buttons….. poor little boy 😦
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It is such a sad story that Leanne had any children at all. It’s not right. At one point after she arrived in America, the widow had to have some polyps removed from her ovaries as they were inhibiting her being able to conceive. She was pregnant within three months of her procedure. I said to my mil, “wow, that worked rather quickly” and my mil said, “well it needed to work because that is the only reason he brought her to America in the first place, was to have his child.” So strange. It was never going to work. As I wrote to SW, she was cheating on him and he had found out for sure that fateful night that he left us. It is certainly not the reason he took his own life, but it was a contributing factor to him doing it then. His depression was very severe and he had become quite violent as well. These stories are really quite tragic. I need to be more thankful for what I have and realize there is only so much I can do.
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I wonder. The damage to these young women who seek the wallets of older men, wow! She’s obviously become a hard, conniving bitch to survive. You wonder why the universe allows it!
You know, as a person who never felt the need to be coupled up – but very aware that I was very happy with the man I did have, aware of the fact that I wasn’t in a position to comment -I felt terribly sorry for Leanne all those years. She so obviously wanted to be married and have children. I knew she was difficult. But I still felt for her, sadly pining for something that wasn’t even real – a romanticised version of happily ever after that no one really gets! I mean I was really happy. But life is never all hearts, perfume, flowers and delight! There is real, everyday slog. The wonderfulness was in those sparkling moments, bone weary, or sad, when he’d gather me up in his long arms and we knew we had each other. The winks or silly lewd gestures we’d jokingly shoot each other in bizarre circumstances – like standing in a pile of warm cowshit after a cow emptied her bowels on my head – sexy as, lol. We had fun together. In sometimes quite dire or mundane circumstances. We’d ludicrously eat spag bol by candlelight after a 14 hour slog through shit, afterbirth and mud. Always finding the monents. And she had no one to share anything with, and so badly wanted that. I should have seen it coming. But I just wanted to love her to try to make up for what she was missing. And I had the greatest guy in the world, who wouldn’t dream of hurting me (besides, he wasn’t her biggest fan) …. hmmmm.
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You have quite a story, Paula. It blows the mind and breaks the heart how carelessly, it seems, they threw it all away over a broken down mess of a story about cheating and lying and manipulating and hurting others. The whole concept that we would never find out… one we hear so often, just doesn’t make any sense. We have never thought that way because we wouldn’t do such things that would cause us to have to hide the truth from the one we love the most. Of course I am speaking of Rog and the rest of them. I am sure Leanne wanted you to find out. I bet there is always that bit of fear though in the OW, stemming from their deep seated insecurities that us finding out would reveal the truth… that they are part of a broken down story, a story of sadness, despair, and self hate (perhaps guised for a short period of time in intrigue, passion, and excitement–that we all know doesn’t last) and that they will be abruptly turned away when the truth is revealed. I know this to be the case with BE’s OW. She knew she would lose what little scrap of attention she was getting if their sad story was revealed. She threatened for so many years, but she never did leave a message. She only revealed the truth when it was over, because she is a bitter, hateful person who wanted to punish me for my perceived wrong doing towards BE. A story built on lie after lie. I guess now, all we can do is focus on the fact that we have the ability to have such a great story… we can make such a partnership because we have the life skills. If we focus on the crumbling of the fairy tale, it will hinder us reaching that place again, that place where we sit in a mess of afterbirth or mud, and smile about it. I don’t think that will ever happen to me, but you never know. ❤
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Also, reading your first paragraph above… “You wonder why the universe allows it!” That made me really stop and think. Yes, how does all this happen, and why. What is it all for. Instead of letting it overwhelm us, I think we need to stop and remember, we have one very short life to live, making the best of it, doing what we can to keep the checks and balances, being good to ourselves and others, it’s our destiny. There have to be kind, generous, giving souls amongst us, otherwise the whole thing would crumble.
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Such a heart-breaking tale. The little boy must feel so alone. The mother is a whore and the father had gone. That’s one kid who’ll need a therapist when he’s older. So, so sad. My heart cries for him 😦 SWxo
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I dare say you are correct, SW. He will certainly need therapy. I believe we all do, but he will most likely need a very special kind, and a lot of it. His mother is not a nice woman. The night the brother committed suicide, he found out she was having an affair. After the death but before I arrived, neighbors saw the other man coming and going from the house. I arrived less than 24 hours after the death. She is heartless and conniving. Even when she wasn’t working or doing anything really, she had the boy in all day care, so she could shop and have lunch with her friends. My heart aches for him too. I wish we didn’t have to choose. 😦
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These last three posts make me sad and mad. I work with elderly people and all I can think is that this poor couple (BE parents) will be alone with no one to love them through the end. Maybe that will serve them justice. As for the the boy- he needs your love and nurturing soul. Let’s all send positive vibes that he finds his way back to it. A
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I understand, A, I really do. It is one of the reasons I am writing this all out. To try and release it and let those feelings go. I dare say, however, that the in-laws will not be alone, they will have their daughter. She lives in the same town, basically, and does not want to be written out of their will. The parents are filthy rich, she is not. The parents are very frugal with their money. Everything the sister and her husband do is for the money. They have been blunt about it. Another reason the sister is happy that Blue Eyes is not on speaking terms with the parents. The little boy, on the other hand, that is a tragedy. 😦 We must focus on Blue Eyes’ recovery right now. We don’t know exactly what the future will hold. Day by day, but I do understand what you are saying. ❤
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So sad for that little boy. The adults in his life and going to do so much damage. And the cycle will continue unfortunately.
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I know. It is heartbreaking. I was hoping the new guy the widow is dating would take the boy under his wing and be a good father figure, but he is a 54 year old attorney who has never been married and didn’t seem to care at all about the boy. There is a reason he is with the widow, same reason she was brought over by another lonely middle aged attorney (based on photos alone) in my opinion. We didn’t want to abandon the boy… but after being told I was going to try and steal him from her??? I am pretty sure that is what she said, she is difficult to understand, and can be very hysterical, we knew it was going to be a very volatile situation, even without the rest of the clan joining the circus. Now it’s a big mess. This is the only way for us.
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