Keeping apart

During my 12 years of writing on Blip, I've always stuck to writing positively about sights and life. When I saw today's image whilst out for a morning walk to grab a newspaper, I knew what I would be writing about. I am sorry to say it's not particularly positive, hopefully just an isolated 'blip'. 

A reminder of how time passes, a fading relic of 2020 - five years gone.

Keep apart it says.

It's also sadly a reflection of the fact that I've not seen my son since he was 12, a period of nearly 16 months. Keep apart it says, it's certainly not my choice. I'm not even absolutely sure it's his choice either, not deep down.
Sixteen months passes comparatively quickly for an adult, for a twelve year old, not so much.

It's not uncommon for a marriage breakdown to equate to desertion, rejection and all the other emotional and psychological effects on a young person.
It's somewhat ironic that a decision to leave can in part be made to spare someone the horrible scenes that played out, and how those might affect their view of the world, of relationships, of negotiation and compromise. Obviously got that wrong didn't I.
But, then again, I didn't know how things would play out. I expected many things, but as the song goes, I never expected that. Never for one minute did I think that more than a year would pass without an opportunity to talk my son, to explain to him, to reassure him. A young man who I took and brought home from school pretty much every day, stood out in all weathers to support him in his sports, told him in excess of a thousand stories at bedtime, comforted him at times of his greatest distress. Loved him, cared for him, and all those things that a loving parent does without a second thought.

Now what? Who knows, I certainly don't, and I have very little influence or chance to make things right, whatever right is. Little wonder he wants nothing to do with me.

And I know I'm not alone in this, I know this very situation unfolds for many parents who chose to call a halt on something that clearly wasn't working.  Kids growing up never knowing, until too much time has passed, but even then, their altered view of their own self worth has been based on some kind of new deformed reality.

But for others none of that is true. It clearly need not be this way. 

Knowing it is not uncommon doesn't make it any easier though, nor right.
And yes, I made the bed on which I now lay, so it's all ok then.
Absent from marriage should not mean absent from family, should it?