So first let me apologize for not writing these last couple of weeks. My Internet was down because... well, because I'm poor and I couldn't afford it. There have been so many things I've wanted to write about but one has really been chomping at my bit. Bear with me and get through the gruesome details - we'll see if she punches you in the gut too.

My older daughter will turn 10 next month and she's always had a way of socking me square in the gut with the things she says. When she was about 5, we were in the process of moving and I accidentally broke the wings off of one of her ceramic angels. Since she was born I've made it a habit to get her an angel of some kind for every holiday and birthday. At the time, I had no idea she understood that they were actually hers. She was 5 years old and I'd just been collecting them here and there for her. When she saw what I'd done, it sent her into a frantic seizure of tears. I was dumbfounded. I had no idea the significance she had placed in them. She cried all the way to the birthday party we were going to and didn't stop until I asked her if she wanted to be the only little girl at the party crying. I felt horrible. When we got to the party, I opened the door and gently bumped her on accident. I apologized for it and her response was this, "That's okay mommy, you just broke my heart." I stopped in the middle of the road with my heart 6 feet behind me. Like I didn't feel bad enough, right? But that's how she is, she has this way of saying the most powerful thing at the most unexpected time with the most casual tone. She sincerely has no idea the power within her comments; she simply says what's right there in her heart.

So I got slugged in the gut again the other day and I can't let it go without writing it down. Let me start by saying that if you've read my previous blogs you already know that my ex-husband and I have a highly functional parental partnership. We just didn't do so well at marriage. I don't think either of us can say that we were ever "in love" with each other, but there's no doubt that we did (and still do to some capacity) love one another. There were two things that caused the end of our marriage. Please understand that these are the things that ended it for ME. I'm no angel and I'm sure if you asked him, my ex-husband would tell you that I had some problems of my own from his point of view. But since he's not writing this blog- you only get to hear what I viewed as our biggest problems.

The first was his thoughtlessness. During the twelve years we were together, I received one single birthday present. Now don't get me wrong - I'm not talking diamond rings or an expensive night out on the town here. My birthday always falls right around and sometimes on Mother's Day so a simple card made by each of the kids would have let me know that somewhere... somehow... he was thinking of me. Just something to say, "You're important in my life and I appreciate you as a mother and a wife." (Yes... I'm throwing a pity-party here). Listen up guys... sometimes just buying a single $1.99 rose from 7-eleven on your way home from work will rock her world. I never got that. And it hurt. There was never a single birthday or Father's day that passed without some show of love to my husband. What hurts worse is that in the last two years there has not been a Mother's day, birthday or any holiday that I haven't gotten something. When I thank my kids for it, they have no idea how much it wounds me to hear, "Eh - Dad got it for you."

The second and most significant destructive force in our marriage was my controlling, over-bearing, interfering, dictatorial mother-in-law. I don't think that even my ex-husband would disagree with my position on that point. When I met him, we lived in Lakewood; his parents lived less than a mile away. When we had our son, got married and moved all the way out to the southern edge of Littleton they moved within a mile within a year. When we moved to Arvada... well - you get the picture.

My father has a justified guilt trip that he does not mean to lay on me, but he does. See, my father does not know his two older grandchildren because they were not allowed to know him. During those 12 years of marriage, there was never one Christmas day that was not spent entirely with his family. Every Thanksgiving was spent at her table eating her dry turkey. Birthdays were held at her home with her buying the most extravagant gifts. Besides a couple of birthdays in their younger years - my family was never invited. Perhaps if my father were a drunk or a slob, I might be able to understand this unadulterated form of selfishness, but my father is in his early sixties now, still working out on a daily basis after going to the office where he dons his suit and tie. His equanimity is immaculate and his wife is an exceptionally poised and wonderful woman. It's not like we're talking about a couple of slouches here - my parents are good people. What we're talking about is the inability to accept that there were two people involved in making our children, not three. Outside of the actual conception of my children, I'm convinced that my ex-monster-in-law would rather have been their mother. She tried very hard to remove my children from me during our divorce. She also tried (and failed) to convince my children that their little sister was not their sibling. Even though her religious values absolutely spurned any idea of divorce, instead of suggesting any kind of couseling to possibly save the marriage - she advised her son to completely reject my idea of leaving lawyers out of it and going to a mediator.

Today if you ask my children point-blank who does their laundry, who makes their meals, who makes and enforces the rules of their father's house, they will tell you... it's their grandmother. It's sad really, because they resent her for the large part she played in the destruction of their parent's marriage. My son continually expresses this resentment and when I ask him why he does not communicate it to his Grandmother he tells me he's afraid she'll stop buying him stuff. I don't need to buy my children's love and I don't like the idea that they are being taught that money is how you cultivate it.

(Big sigh and stepping off of my soap box)

Okay... so I've vented about my ex-mother-in-law enough for you to get the picture (and believe me - there's much more I edited out so as not to sound so resentful). She's this really sweet, kind (pretentious) and wonderful Christian woman - to everyone but me. I don't think any woman who'd have married her son would have been good enough to be anything other than a vessel for her "grand"-children. I have no love-loss for this woman, my marriage to her son was never perfect, but it was made perfectly miserable with her relentless interference.

Here's the punch in the gut: Last week my daughter asks me completely out of the blue, "Mommy, do you think if Grandma dies you and Daddy will get back together?" It took me about 60 seconds to pick my jaw up from the floor. I had no idea how to answer her. I still don't. And that's what I told her. My stomach is still sore from that one.