Free

Spring is less than three weeks away but there's another reason I'm glad March has arrived.  March signals the end of the oppressive personal feelings I get during the period between Christmas and the end of February, a time in which all three of my estranged sons have their birthdays.

Jimmy, Johnny and Danny are victims of Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS), a form of brainwashing whereby children learn to blindly hate one parent, an unnatural state foisted upon them as minors by their Mother during the ruinous divorce last decade.  Some people say PAS is a form of child abuse.

None of my sons has spoken with any Lamberton in over a decade, or with me in half a decade, and each of the younger two's last communication with me was to asked me to provide for payment of one hundred percent payment of their college tuition and fees, which I did.  With the Christmas season and all their birthdays past, and the turmoil of feelings that necessarily imposes upon me as I vainly use the Internet to invite them to lunches at restaurants on the significant days, I have the rest of the year stretching out ahead of me during which any reminders of them can be more minimal.  

The Native Americans have a saying: Don't let yesterday take up too much of today.  I "gave" my youngest son a book as a birthday present the book Night by Eli Wiesel, which has this passage near its conclusion:  I did not weep, and it pained me that I did not weep. But I was out of tears. And deep inside of me, if I could have searched the recesses of my feeble conscience, I might have found something like: Free at last!...