the purity of the children

many of you know that my sister has been going through an extremely difficult custody battle with the father of her children. she's documented well the torment that he's levied on her life, his uncanny ability to manipulate not only her but seemingly anybody that might help him to get his way, and the difficulty of getting away from his inexplicable magnetism. she's fighting the fight of her life right now. i worry for her every day, i support her where i can. and i have to fight the urges of the protective older brother because i know saying what i'd like to say or doing what i'd like to do would cost so much more than it would gain. it's a battle i wouldn't wish on anyone, and i can't tell you how difficult it is watching my own sister go through it and feeling helpless to do anything about it...

at the same time, it makes me thankful for the relationship that i have with ian's mom. yes, she cheated on me. yes, she gave up on us even when i was fighting with all my might to save our marriage and a level of stability in ian's life. yes, she hurt me and drained my self-confidence for a while. but through it all, there's been an mutual and unspoken agreement that ian's happiness, ian's greoundedness, ian's comfort, and ian's emotional "purity" is the most important thing in either of our lives. and while we've had moments when the last thing we've wanted is to see one-another, we've never let those emotions creep into the light of ian's world. we don't use one-another against ian to gain some kind of sacred ground. i know k is a good and loving mom to ian and she knows i'm a good and loving dad. and we don't think we're anything special because of it - we're not walking around patting ourselves on the back for a parenting relationship that we know ian deserves...

i pray that one day carrie can free herself from the shadow cast by a man who cannot compute that his children are more important than his need to win. because life is so much better when you know that your kids come first - in everybody's eyes...