Change

I've been thinking a lot about what Donetta and Kether said in this post.

I believe the same things that Donetta said about change. You can only change yourself. You can NEVER change anyone else.

But how do we know that someone has changed? Especially if we have shut them out of our lives?

Yes, my mother is on her way now. No, I don't trust her but I don't have a choice. Besides how am I supposed to trust her if I don't give her a chance. She really doesn't understand what goes on here. She doesn't know. Maybe if she knew, she would see it differently.

There are things that she is seeing differently already. I am not making excuses for her either.

I'm not one to engage in the drama. I'm not one to keep rolling the codependent ball either.

But I know I have changed and I have become a bitter, angry, frightened person. I hope that I don't stay this way forever and I also hope that someone doesn't judge me when they have come across me at my worst.

But what if...what if... God is finally coming around and what if, like Kether said, this is the answer.

I don't know that my Mom purposefully put the kids in danger. My sister had the kids lying to her and telling her their father wasn't around when he was. In complete fairness, my mother did not have custody of my niece who was murdered. Why she went down with my sister, I don't know. Probably because my sister took her down with her to try and save her own butt.

I will never know. All I can know is through chance. I would never do anything to endanger the kids. If my mother does anything out of line, she knows it will be the end. She has to know this is huge for me.

17 years ago my grandfather said something to me he never should have. That day I cut him off and never looked back. My mother knows I will do it. She knows I will change my number, move and never look back.

She will see. With her faith still in tact the way it is, I know she will see what the kids being away from their mother and that whole family has done and how life has changed for them and that this is where they belong, in this family.

I think she will be smart enough to know that "this is it". One of those life changing moments/chances that she will never get again.

She has a chance to be part of this. Only time will tell. But my kids will always come first as long as I can help it.