Who will care? When you're gone?

August 8,2006 Wednesday

I see the frustration in which cowboy is currently feeling. I see how the sudden big change of having me there home all the time - hardly there @ all is starting to take a big toll on him. Honestly, it's even starting to take a toll on me as well. Yet I have not much of a choice. I want nothing more than to stay @ home & raise my children & go to school only prt. time. I'm struggling now just as I was when I first started school, if not more so now, than I was. Now I'm a struggling full time student with a part time job that seems to be full time. My grades & study times are suffering substantially. Cowboy now goes to day care during the times I'm in school & at work, if, I can pay for it. I'm basically working just to pay for his daycare. Getting child support from their father is becoming seemingly impossible. The prossacuting Attorney is having a hell of a time getting him served! They claim they've tried twice in the past 3 months! Meanwhile 3 kids ta care for, a hell of a pile of bills, that keeps growing, & income is hardly enuff to even cover daycare.Strapped & trapped, just as he wanted me ta be. Yet I know not the reason for any of it. It's not I who is the only one suffering here, it's my/our children who are suffering the most through it all. They all see how I'm struggling to make inns meat, to provide for them. The girls understand I have to work to provide for a living, they see their father not helping me out in any way. They see the time spent together with me is cutt to a mere sudden embrace.
Written journal entries on paper I've got to get placed here, just in case something happens to them. For a few yrs. my children went w/o just as I. Though It didn't hit me that my children were seeing the things that were going on until one night I had come home from school there was nothing in the house to eat except for a can of refried beans. Though my children had little smokies mixed with shells & cheeze, the only thing left was a can of beans. I was starving I hadn't eaten anything in 3 days other than a pop tart I had eaten over @ their aunt Beths. I warmed up the can of beans, sat dwn & started eating it. MJ came up too me, shook her head & said "mom this is rediculouse!" I asked her what was ridiculouse & she said,"you eating a can of beans for your dinner, you need to eat mom! I haven't seen you eat anything in a couple of days now & if you don't eat then you will get sick and die & then who's going to take care of us?" I asked her if she had eaten a decent dinner she said, "yes" I then told her,"that's all that matters to me baby, is that you kids get the things that you need especially food, if it takes me going w/o just so you kids don't have to then that's all that's important to me. I'm a grown woman, I'm not gonna grow anymore but you kids still have alot more growing to do.I'll do whatever! it takes to take the absolute best care of you that I possibly can.You kids are all that matter to me, I hope you see & understand that." her reply to that was,"Yes mom but if you don't take care of yourself then who's going to take care of us? How can you be taking care of yourself when you don't ever eat?"
MJ slapped me with a highly great point! I had no wheels, no job, no cash, no nothing. We had been living in a house that was paid for yet documented as being an inheritance to their father.A father & husband (by paper documents only) not providing for his family in any way shape or form! yet he pulled in $65K in the previouse yr. & $60k the yr. prior to that. I was strapped & trapped with no way out. no family members to turn to for assistance & was in dire need of a divorce!
With not even a penny to my name I called Legal Aid NUMEROUSE OF TIMES & told them of what was goin' on! I begged & pleaded & cried for their help, yet they turned me dwn.I guess according to them denying a child of food, clothing,hygenic needs, medical neccessities & what not isn't considered as being abuse to neither the children nor to tha spouse who strongly felt her life was in danger. So I fought it myself! didn't get far due to him keeping me out of court the day of the hearing & dropping his petition. Yet he still didn't care for the children & I was left a sitting duck! So I finally swallowed my pride turned to neighbors, family & friends for assistance for as long as I possibly could then I turned to the state for assistance, he knew before I had turned to them, that they would go after him for the repayment. yet he still told me he wasn't going to give me anything unless he was ordered to by the courts! The state denied me due to a phone call made by him to my caseworker claiming that he was living in the home that we were in.They requested verification that I was unable to provide due to none of his mail coming to our house. Therefore; I was denied, unless I had moved out! So the children & I packed up & left. NOw there's a battle between MJ & KK about their father.Cowboy doesn't wanna have anything to do with him though he does ask occassionally where he's @.MJ has a love- hate relationship towards tha man.KK places him upon a peda stool.I myself guess I would be considered as having a love-hate relationship towards him as well. I love him yet I hate him for absolutely all of the wrong things in which he has ever done to me or the children. All that he's put us through, we definately never deserved. I hope he finds happiness within himself. I hope my children & I find happiness within' our lives.