A Thanksgiving Letter to Ex's Son

During my time with my ex I was blessed to spend time with a remarkable boy, his son (LD).

Over the course of our tumultuous ending, which included three breakups and reconciliations, my ex lied to his son about what was going on in order to "protect him." The first lie was that I had left to take care of my sick father, who is perfectly healthy. The last lie was that I left because I wanted to fulfill my dream of living in Arizona. The first lie, though shameful, was less shameful because at least the child could reason that I have an obligation to my father. The second implies that I abandoned both of them on a whim simply to satisfy my own desires. Not only will this not fit with the child's experience of me, but it will leave him feeling valueless (but of course in actuality he is to an N.) LD's mother (O) agrees that this was totally inappropriate and has spoken with her son about why I left. But now her son must struggle with deciding which version is true. Should he believe his father (the hero's) version or his mother's account. I decided to draft a letter to my little friend to try to explain, in eight year old terms, why I left and to let him know how I feel.

After considering my first draft O decided that she wasn't comfortable with my telling LD that his father made me feel stupid and ugly. Her point was that this should be about saying goodbye to her son and not taking a jab at his father and that the child would have no recourse with the negative feelings that my admission would bring up for him. I counter that the letter is about saying goodbye, but it is also about countering a lie and validating my experience with the my ex's family, which the child was a part of.

O----- and I discussed it again and I drafted a second letter. It follows and what LD will see:
***********************************************************************************

The day before Thanksgiving 2008

Dear LD,

It's the day before Thanksgiving and I've been thinking a lot about you. Actually I think a lot about you every day. I miss you so much! I hope that you're doing well and have a super Thanksgiving!

I wish I could be there with you. I really want to. For Thanksgiving I want to tell you how thankful I am to know you and how much I wish I could still be a part of your family. It was my greatest dream to always be in your family. It became the most important thing in my life! That's why I left Pennsylvania. I wanted to be Lady P. :)

I'll bet you've figured out by now that things happen with grown ups that don't make a lot of sense and seem stupid. I mean, you're probably asking yourself, "If Laura wanted to stay and be a part of our family why isn't she here?" And that's a good question! The answer is, I don't know. It's one of those grown-up things that get called "issues." Your Dad and I had "issues." I couldn't live with him any more because I don't like the way he makes me feel about myself. It was very, very hard for me to leave, but sometimes we have to do what's best for ourselves even when it's really hard. I want you to know that I loved your Dad very much, and that I will always love you!

I am very sad that I won't be able to spend as much time with you. I will miss skiing, bike riding and playing games with you. But I will be in touch as you grow up and I will be thinking of you every day. I hope you can come visit me sometime in Tucson. We can go mountain biking and hiking with Emily. I think she misses you as much as I do.

I will be sending Armrest with his new tongues soon! :D

Laura (Medium Dude)