Roads

So,...........I had a moment yesterday, driving on a dusty prairie road, that I thought
"How did I get here"
Not how, as in the place, although the choice of roads we took that day had some factor in my thinking. Hubs had decided to take the back way from one town to the next to kill some time and it became one of those are we ever going to get there trips. A nearly two hundred mile round trip to spend ten minutes at a Wendy's drive through and another twenty in a park.
Why?
Essentially, we were hiding our grandson from his mother.
Seeing that in black and white brings a wave of not just "how did I get here?" but "What in the hell are you thinking?" It makes me feel, well, all kinds of not good things.
Among the handful of other things happening in 2013 and rattled and confounded my brain was the effect that the absence of my grandson's mother was having on his tiny little heart. A month before his first birthday she decided to move to the next city, with her parents support and blessing. The other Grandma and my son worked out a schedule where grandson was in our home while she was working, and theirs when she wasn't. Mom was supposed to come back on weekends, which never really happened. She worked weekends,..she didn't have money for gas,..The other Grandma took the baby to the next city from time to time to see his mother, but not often enough. Mom would go for five or six weeks at a time not seeing her baby. There were times I would watch him toddling between the dining room window and the ones next to the front door. I wondered if he was looking for his mother, or his other grandmother,..he was always happy to see his other grandmother. Never cried when she came to take him,..but sometimes when she dropped him off. Her schedule as a nurse had him coming and going at all hours. Different homes, different places to sleep,..different foods to eat, different "wubbies",..toys, types of bottles, brands of diapers. There was absolutely nothing consistent in his life and it showed.
Just after Christmas my son started to develop an attitude about all of this. He and I had endless debates about why we should give her a chance,..why he wasn't prepared to be a full time single dad. I would sometimes take it personally when he would say that my grandsons grandparents should not be raising him. These were my little guilt things. Remembering that I had left my oldest son with my mother for a time while trying to find myself was why I stuck up for my grandson's mother. When things came to a point where Grandson's dad was unwilling to return him to the other Grandmother. Baby started to live with us full time. I have memory cards filled with the joy that his being here has brought to our lives. Seeing my son with his son and the bond that they have developed gives me hope for this situation.
Watching my grandson struggle to deal with all of it was like going back in time to see things through my oldest sons eyes, but I will tackle that in another post