"Girl RedShoes"

I have this daughter... if it isn't obvious from the way that I have talked about her, I love her very very much...

We have this great understanding between us...

I knew things were going to be 'different' when the OB/GYN had assured us that this baby was going to be a boy... and it wound up a girl... I didn't mind... she was healthy...

She had a verbally/emotionally/physically abusive Mom...

I'm not sure that her Mom could help it... because SHE had a verbally/emotionally/physically abusive Mom...

The Mrs Ex RedShoes was born in Germany...  her Mom was a young woman in Germany during WWII... Nanny (I will call her that because that's what we called her)(tip of the hat to Jen)... I can't imagine living in a country at war... where war is being waged IN your country... Germany at that time was being bombed back to the Stone Age... if you are versed in Economics, we were trying to collapse their Production Possibilities Curve... The British RAF bombed at night (they got the breaks) and the American Army Air Corp bombed during the daytime... they made easy targets for the German Luft Waffe...

Anyway...

During a bombing raid on Frankfurt, Nanny's mother and some family members were killed... and Nanny became the matriarch of what was left of that family at a very young age... she did what was necessary to keep the family together... I don't blame Nanny for being the way she was... she had to survive...

I don't necessarily blame my ex for being the way she was... she grew up in a household with a woman who HAD to survive... I am sure that Nanny had some form of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome...

I guess I don't really blame anyone, per se... I am just explaining why things were the way they were...

There were any number of times that I would come home from work, and Mrs Ex RedShoes would be yelling and screaming at GRS... and slapping and hitting her... I would always intervene...  The ex also did this to BRS... and to me... (not the physical abusive part... but there are always scars... that's part of my problem today... but I digress)...

While at the MSMS, in addition to tattoos and piercings, GRS developed an unhealthy relationship with alcohol...  the first time she got into trouble there was over alcohol...

She got into trouble there several times there due to alcohol... one of my biggest regrets is that I didn't bring her home the first time she got in trouble... hmmm...

Several years later, GRS comes to my office to see me... she was a student at Alluvial Flood Plains State University... where I teach... and she tells me, "Dad... I have an alcohol problem..." 

'Well, DUH!!!!,' was my mental response... the actual response was that I got up and hugged her... and told her I knew that...

Anyway.... to not get bogged down here... over the course of the next year and a half... GRS is stopped for DUI four times... she is ticketed three times... and receives two convictions...

Upon learning of the third ticket... and not knowing how to cope... handle all of this, I took a legal pad and went to her apartment... sat at a table with her... and asked her to "write down what she wants..."

She took the pad and pen... and asked... "what do you mean, Dad?"

I told her... "At the rate you are going... you are going to kill yourself... and when that happens, I won't be able to function... I want you to write out for me what you want your funeral to be like... tell me what dress you want me to bury you in... tell me what music you want... because when this happens, I won't be able to think..."

We cried... we hugged... and we cried some more...  but I guess what scared me more than anything else... was the fact that she could kill someone while driving under the influence... and I told her that would be as difficult to experience as it would be to lose her...

I guess what I am saying here... is that I would never ever abandon my daughter... I always want to be a constant in her Life... that if the wheels come off... and she needs input... she can call me...she can rely on me to be there...

Sometimes, having someone there is a good thing...