My daughter’s paternal grandmother is in the hospital, once again.  She’s been back and forth for over a month now.  Things are not “looking” so good now.  

 

    Last night, I told my mother about it so she could pray for the family.  She told me I need to say whatever I want to say to her now. I let her know that I speak with “Mom Jamison” on a regular basis and we are okay.  We say what we have to say every time we speak.  To this day, she has always ended our conversations with, “You know I still love you and you will always be my daughter-in-law”, and I always say the same to her and she is still my mother-in-law. 

 

    Just last week, I received a beautiful letter from my sister-in-law, Dorothy.  She’s her oldest child.  She said I will always be her sister-in-law.  Her other daughter, Maria, feels the same way and I feel like I just have two more sisters.  At family events, we all sit together and enjoy one another’s company.  This includes the current wife.  She has always been good to Liz and, for that, I am so grateful.

 

    I’ve been reflecting on how good ”Mom Jamison” has been to us.  I remember well how we didn’t want to trust Liz to just anybody for child care when I went back to work.  “EJ” drove out of the way to drop her off at his mother’s house every morning before he went to work and picked her up in the evening.  We could work through each day with peace because we knew she was in good hands.

 

    My ex-husband and I have a civil relationship and have had that since early days of separation and then after divorce.  It just wasn’t in the cards for us  to be married . . . to each other.  However, we did have a child in this marriage.  She matters.  We realized that she was more important that what we were going through.  We learned to put aside differences and raise this child, together with the entire family. 

 

    Mom and I talked about how it would be so nice if parents who are not together could have such relationships after they split.  It is not easy and it does take work.  You simply have to be more committed to the child(ren) and their healthy environment and development into adulthood.

 

    The responsibility of raising our daughter was shared.  Our relationship has remained drama-free.  There has been peace in my home and in his.  There was no calling the current wife to dog him out (or her),  or beg to speak to him or get him to do things.  I didn’t have to beg for things because he was already taking care of his business. 

 

    You want to do what’s right “for the sake of the children”, but is that what you’re doing?  If you are raising a child in a single-parent household, make a move to give that child a drama-free, strong foundation.  It can be done in spite of your situation.