Promise Me

October 13, 2004 | Category: Family, It's a Trip

Make me a promise.

Promise me if CD and I don't work things out, that you'll help me hold on to my humanity. Promise me you'll print this out, this open letter of Post-Nuptial promise and you'll stick it to my head with Crazy Glue so I can't avoid my own words.

Promise me.

Not that we're getting divorced. I know love isn't enough but it counts for some serious glue - and we do actually have a bulldozer full of it for each other. Adoring, sweet, scrumptious kind love for each other.

But.

I was reading Emily's blog today and she isn't the first one to demonize her Ex. To end up in an angry battle where she and he are slinging unholy mud at each other. I mean even in my own family, this has happened before my own eyes.

Two people, who make a child together. Who will be the only two people in the world who will ever, ever be so in love together for that baby and who that baby grows up to be.

Please.

Remind me that CD was the one, who believed even after the doctor had given up. Remind me that CD roared Bear's name, grinning, when that heartbeat showed strong. Remind me that we slept together, and it was CD's neck that pillowed our new Bear, and how I wept with too much love.

If it all falls apart, and I strap on the gloves, stop me.

Point to CD, and tell me again how this man has every right that I do to our child. That he is flawed and infuriating sometimes but he is good always. That he should never have to beg for his access to his child. That nothing he does to me as a husband should be taken out on him as a father.

Remind me.

If I forget and allow this miracle, this child we walked through coals to have, to become a bone between two dogs. Kick me in the ass.

Remind me that I am an adult, and can use my words. That I am an adult and can use my ears. That I am an adult and know how to share gracefully.

That every tragedy does not have to have a bad guy.

Promise me that you will squeeze my hand and point my anger to ground, where it will not defile my son's heroic vision of his father.

Promise me that no matter what, I will not assume that I am somehow the more entitled parent because of biology.

Promise me that you will help guide me away from retribution or fear to a place where I remember that no divorce could ever stop me from sharing parenthood with CD.

I know that we don't all get happily ever after. I learned that a long time ago. But I fully intend to spend the rest of my life with this man, and torture my son with the embarrassment of finding my dead body astride his father's - with a wicked grin on my face and my false teeth in a glass by the bed.

But just in case. I mean, just as a plan for a very last resort ...

Promise me.

Please.

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