by Cyndi Li

Created on: September 21, 2007   Last Updated: August 17, 2010

I had always checked on them before i went to bed for the night. Even though they'd been asleep for hours before I headed to bed, I still always checked on them one more time before retiring. The ritual was 12 years old: as old as the oldest one. They youngest one was 11 years old. The ritual ended in 1995.

After a bitter battle and divorce, I was living alone for the first time in my entire life. I was 32, and had went from living at my parents home to living with my boyfriend. The same boyfriend who later became my husband of 13 years. My only children, two healthy, active, strapping boys now lived with him, and I lived alone.

If you're like most people, you've probably already jumped to the conclusion that I must be an unfit mother. Why else would a court award placement to the father? You couldn't be more wrong if you tried.

The boys wanted to live with him, and after eight months of telling them no, I decided to allow them the chance to see what is would be like to live with their father, and that is when the pain became almost unbearable for me.

I couldn't touch them before I went to bed each night. I could make sure they were snuggle and safely tucked into their beds dreaming of lollipops and candy canes. It hurt my heart so intensely to not have them with me all the time anymore. One night in particular stands out more than all the others. 

It was the night I saw the snowman. It was winter. They had been to my home over the weekend and had built the snowman on the back lawn, just shy of the border of the now frozen pond that occupied a large portion of my yard. I'd awaken moments earlier with a panic attack. I'd went into the kitchen to get a drink and had suffered a severe attack of anxiety. It was so intense I couldn't breath and felt as if I were being suffocated.I'd run to the window and thrust it open with everything I had an hung my head outside, breathing in the brisk winter air of one of the longest nights of my life.

It was horrible and I hope no one ever has to feel the pain that I felt that night. Divorce is painful, but not having your children with you is even more painful.

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