a simple change of perspective can present a right side up picture.  Not deep just a thought.  I typed out this whole long thing about what has been going on for the past 6 days.  I wrote about the drama and trauma of realizing that your kid is out of control and is hell bent on doing what she wants no matter what you do.  I wrote about how deeply hurt my husband was...is about having to dig deep and reach out to his estranged ex-wife and ask her to step up and help him to save their little girl.  I delved into the profound irony of me the step mother who this child has loved, hated, leaned on, pushed away, trusted, having to reassure her that going to her Mother was okay.  I had to give her back and step back after all these years of being the Mom and allow what was supposed to be all along, be.  I didn't ask for this life, this role but it was mine and  letting go was hard as hell.   BUT I say that if my husband who has been the one constant in her and her brothers life could get passed the hurt to do what he needed to do no matter how much it hurt, I could suck it up and accept this.  We would rather miss her than mourn her.  She was out there.

She wanted to do what she wanted to do. This last time she wanted to take a 3 day journey to who knows where with God only knows who. We learned things that no parent wants to learn about their little girl in this past 6 days.  She wasn't loving us when she kissed us good-bye last Friday morning and decided not to go to school and not to come home until three days later. We were loving her as we called the police and printed off recent pictures of her while we held on to the hope that she would call or come home.  She didn't mean it when she told me only a few days earlier that she wanted to do right and gave me her word that she meant it.  She lied, repeatedly. We may never know just how much.  This was so much more than the typical teen rebellion.  We had to come to terms with the fact that she is truly a wild child.  And the more that we tried to work with her the more she tried to work against us.  

So, now she is gone and at first it felt like we were grieving for a lost child.  I don't think I've ever cried so much and so hard in my life.  But she is in the midst of love and a healing is going to take place.   The battle is not over. And those who should have been helping us protect her but rather helped her to turn out like this for lack of respect for my husband are still trying to undermine this decision and again take ownership of her.  My brother in-law and his wife  are so unhealthy and I think it's just evil.  But that's another story.  Now its time for her mother to be the guardian of her fate, flesh and soul, with Gods help of course.   I know in my heart that we did the best we could.  The one thing that she has needed, feared, wanted, rejected the most was the key...Mommy.  No one but the woman who gave her life and burdened her with the her biggest conflict, could help her.  Love is healing, and resolution is key.  I respect that. 

There is so so so much to this , I can't type it all.  I don't know what will come, my husband is in a weird space and I don't know if things with us can get better behind this.  But I do know that life must go on.  And in the end this is for the best.  It was just so sudden and it hurts.  For this I turn to my faith.   I know one thing we weren't mentally or emotionally prepared for this, in a short time it will be just he and I.  We didn't plan on our nest being empty so soon.  

God bless and keep her. I have let go...

NOTE:  In the middle of all the pain, she pulled one final caper as she left our home...she picked her brothers pocket and stole his new MP3 player. She wanted one, and in typical fashion, she did what SHE wanted to do.  And this very way of being is why we did what we had to do.