Last holiday chance

It's President's Day federal holiday today, so at noon I'll be taking lunch at The Lost Dog Cafe in Westover as is my wont on holidays and birthdays in the hopes that St. Nick will soon be there.  Of course I mean my three sons JJ&D, not Chris Kringle, who haven't communicated with me or any family member on my side since before the divorce wars were finally final last decade when my legacy and estate became a dried-out husk after years of litigation which included the three of them suing me as tender minors under the directions of their mother--an anti-public policy reprehensible stance which got "their" case, labelled a "harassment petition" by the judge and "unjustified" by the appellant court, tossed and she was assessed almost $50,000 in sanctions and costs.

Ah, divorce.  How can someone who formerly professed to love you and who bore your children turn on the other parent so underhandedly and work so viciously and long to diabolically murder the childhoods of your precious offspring by deliberately inserting them so intimately in the seemingly endless divorce litigation and its forever aftermath?

I hope to see one or more of the boys at lunch, or all of them plus Laura too, the only spouse I know about (stemming from a neighbor's vague comment plus a search on the good ol' Internet), because this is the last holiday I'm going to tilt at the windmill of possible rapprochement after a decade of dining with the empty chair.  This winter the last of the lads will turn thirty and after that I'll dispense with providing a set and customary place where on special days we can meet in a known public venue to start getting on with the first day of the rest of our lives.

Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) is a real and pernicious form of child abuse, Sharon Rogers Lightbourne.  Shame on anyone who even tangentially participates in it, including Victor, Meg, Bill, Joe and all the psychologists their mother took them to, both known and unknown to me, too numerous to list here.