Custody

It is hard enough on a kid when his or her life is torn by divorce, but why make it worse by making them live two lives? I thank God that my dad wanted full custody. With full custody came stability, and the opportunity to heal. In my case I believe that full custody was the closest thing to a normal life that my parents could give to us after the divorce. When it comes down to it however, each family is different; in one case, full custody might be the best thing for the family, an other family though might find that joint custody is better.

Some Structure

My parents ironed out the visitation rights in court which helped a little. My dad wanted full custody and our birth mom let him have it ( this worked out to the better; see my post on custody) and my birth mom got to see us every other weekend. This made my sisters and I feel tremendously more stable. We still ached for our mom during the times in between visits, but now we could anticipate the next visit.

Visitation

Not even a year later, my dad followed her and moved to Indiana with the hope that there just might be another chance. My mom was finished with him, but she wanted to see my sisters and I once in a while. It was sad when our mom came by for the first time because we had to explain to my youngest sister who she was. For the first few years that we lived in Indiana we would visit our mom for a weekend here and a weekend there. It wasn't until my parents made the divorce official then we began to see her a little more often. As kids we were very emotional about this whole process and I don't think many people realize how hard that kind of situation is for young kids.

The Long in the Short

I don't remember much about the day when my mom ran away. My dad told me that she had tried to leave a few times before, but this time was for good. She was young (about twenty) when she took off to "find herself". Only a few weeks before, my dad had convinced her to come back to New Jersey from another episode of fleeing the family, he even went to pick her up in Indiana. I remember having a little welcome home party. I still hadn't realized what was going on. Then the night came where she was just... gone. She left my three younger sisters and I (all of us being under five and my youngest sister was not even a year old) under my dad's care and went to Indiana.
My dad must have realized that this time she was not coming back, because he tried to explain to my sisters and I that she left us. She left on a bus in the middle of the night, but we stayed up and prayed for her.