The Years I Can’t Get Back

There are some things I can joke about. Some things I can wrap in sarcasm, make a little lighter, and move on from.

This isn’t one of them.

This is probably one of the hardest things I will ever write because there is no version of this story where I come out completely innocent. There is no neat little ending where everything gets tied up with a bow and all those lost years suddenly don’t matter.

I have two children I love more than I will ever be able to put into words.

And for more than a decade, I barely knew them.

Their father and I had a relationship that became so volatile after we separated that eventually the court ordered us to communicate only in writing. We haven’t spoken to each other in nearly 20 years. Not a phone call. Not a conversation. Nothing.

We couldn’t see eye to eye. We couldn’t figure out how to co-parent without everything becoming a battle. Somewhere in the middle of two adults who couldn’t find a way to coexist were two kids who deserved better from all of us.

And then came the court system.

Attorneys. Accusations. Demands. Hearings. Decisions that felt like they had already been made before I ever walked into the room. I felt railroaded, unheard and powerless. I agreed to things because I thought if I just did one more thing, jumped through one more hoop, proved myself one more time, I would get to be their mom again.

Instead, it felt like every attempt somehow came back to bite me in the ass.

But I also have to own something that has taken me years of therapy to be able to say:

I walked away.

There were reasons. There was anger. There was exhaustion. There was hurt. At the time, I believed my children were being manipulated against me, and eventually I became so defeated that I stopped fighting the way a mother should have kept fighting.

That is a truth I have to live with.

I didn't leave my marriage because I didn't love my children. I didn't want a romantic relationship with their father anymore. We had become distant and unloving, and I knew I couldn't spend the rest of my life pretending otherwise.

But ending that relationship was never supposed to mean losing my children.

I never imagined I would miss kindergarten milestones.

High school graduations.

College graduations.

My daughter graduating from the Air Force Academy—something so incredibly close to my own heart—and knowing I wasn't there for the journey that got her there.

Those aren't just dates on a calendar.

Those are pieces of motherhood I will never get back.

For years, I grieved my children while they were still alive.

There really isn't another way to describe it.

For more than five years, I cried in the shower almost every single day. The shower was where nobody could hear me. I could turn on the water, completely fall apart, wipe my face and somehow walk back into the world pretending I was functioning.

It felt like a death without a funeral.

My children were alive. Growing. Becoming people. Having birthdays and accomplishments and bad days and firsts and lasts.

And I wasn't there.

I went through extensive therapy because the grief and guilt absolutely destroyed parts of me. Even now, after doing so much work to rebuild myself, those wounds haven't magically disappeared. Anxiety and depression became part of the aftermath, and I still have to take care of my mental health because some scars don't disappear simply because life eventually gets better.

Then, after more than 12 years without seeing my children, I finally got in my car and drove to North Carolina to see my son.

Twelve years.

There is no sentence I can write that makes that number hurt any less.

I didn't know what that reunion would look like. I didn't know whether there would be anger or awkwardness or whether twelve years was simply too much distance to cross.

But I went.

And about a year later, with some encouragement from my son, my daughter and I began reconnecting too.

That relationship carries its own kind of heartbreak because there was a time in her life when she desperately needed her mom.

And I wasn't there.

We were both robbed of that.

I can't change it. I can't go backward and hold her when she needed me. I can't go back and tell my son all the things I should have told him growing up. I can't sit in the audience at the graduations I missed. I can't rewind their childhood and demand another chance.

God, I wish I could.

Today, I see my kids occasionally when I travel to New Jersey, and I treasure every second I get.

Every conversation.

Every laugh.

Every hug.

Especially the hugs.

Sometimes I probably hold on a second longer than I should because they don't know how many years I imagined what it would feel like to hug them again.

But the complicated thing about getting them back into my life is that the fear didn't disappear.

In some ways, it got bigger.

Because now they're grown.

They're thriving. They're building careers and lives of their own. They're becoming the adults I always hoped they would become, even though I had to watch so much of it from a distance.

And somewhere in the back of my mind lives this question I am almost afraid to say out loud:

Will there be a place for me in the lives they're building?

When they get married, will I be there?

When they have children of their own, will I get to be Grandma?

Will I be part of Sunday dinners and holidays and random phone calls?

Will I get to know the people they become, or will I always be trying to make up for years that none of us can get back?

I don't know.

And that's fucking terrifying.

I could spend the rest of my life blaming their father, the attorneys, the judge, the court system, the circumstances, or every person I believe played a role in what happened.

Some of that anger is still there.

But healing has also meant looking in the mirror and acknowledging my own choices.

I made mistakes.

I became defeated.

I walked away when I should have found another ounce of strength and kept fighting.

I will carry that regret for the rest of my life.

But I refuse to let regret be the only thing left of my motherhood.

I can't change the mother I was allowed—or able—to be twenty years ago.

I can only decide what kind of mother I am today.

So I will keep showing up.

I will make the drive.

I will answer the phone.

I will treasure the visits.

I will hug them for that extra second.

I will respect the lives they have built without me while quietly hoping they make room for me in the lives they're still building.

And I will love them without demanding that they heal on my timeline or forgive things simply because I am sorry.

Because maybe motherhood isn't always the beautiful story we put on Mother's Day cards.

Sometimes motherhood is regret.

Sometimes it's grief.

Sometimes it's loving your children from a distance and wondering whether they know just how many nights you cried because you missed them.

Sometimes it's admitting you fucked up.

And sometimes it's being given another chance—not to rewrite the past, because none of us can—but to show up differently for whatever time comes next.

There are years with my children that I will never get back.

That truth will always hurt.

But they're here.

I'm here.

And there is still a story left for us to write.

I just hope with everything in me that I get to be part of the next chapter.