The bleakest season . . .

It's that extra day in the year, February 29th, one that comes only every four years. The last time it came I was in my sixties, and still within a distant last sighting of any of my 3 children more than a decade earlier . Now I'm in my seventies and my last sighting of any of my children has slipped to two decades earlier. The divorce you know.

This the the day the bleak third of the year ends each year, usually on March 1st, occasionally on February 29th. For persons estranged from their loved ones darkness often descends on Thanksgiving, the start of the holiday season, and ends . . . ? For me it's always at the end of February when my youngest child, now in his mid-thirties, has his birthday at the regular end of the month. The other two sons cram their birthdays in between the New Year and the youngest's birthday. Time moves on, you know?

Do I still care? Yeah, I guess so. Probably a lot. But less so now, as the years-now decades-march on. Their mother made a fine job of poisoning their tender minds back then against me and all Lambertons, none of whom have heard from them since they were mere children. She painted with a broad brush, and has made a lifetime work of it. She's truly extraordinary in her accomplishment, and the boys-now men-have an unnatural enmity hardening their hearts. I'm sorry for them. C'est la vie, or perhaps, c'est la guerre.

The Phone Call

2023 in Review. August 2d. The phone rang at 6:30 AM her time, exactly two weeks after we’d tenderly kissed goodbye and I’d driven away at midnight, a fortnight filled with my phone calls not being taken because she was wiped, busy, buzzed, would call me later. “Are you sitting down?” the familiar voice asked.

For three minutes I wordlessly listened to how blessed she was to have known me and how kind and generous I was. How devoted and considerate I’d been when I’d taken care of her after her terrible bike accident when no family member had had the time nor inclination to come visit her during her two days in the hospital or during those first awful ten days of recovery at home, with her displaced front teeth splinted shut to save them, stitches in her eyebrow and from her lip to her nose to close gaping lacerations, her voice barely discernible from a blow to her larynx, contusions all over her body and her head wracked with pain from a concussion.

 She continued on about how smart and what a good writer I was, and how much she’d learned from me. I could tell she was reading from a list of bullet points she’d written down beforehand, a lawyer’s trick I’d taught her to do before she undertook any important phone call so she could unerringly stay on point and not be swayed from her main purpose. And she was unswerving in where she was going, everything was in the past tense.

 She was wrapping it up. But we were so different! Although we got along so fabulously and had always had such a great time together, now that she was established in her new life so far away, and a long distance relationship was so tenuous no matter how temporary it was, and given how opposite our outlooks and personalities were—her voice gave off a tiny little sob, a manipulative trick in her bag of feminine wiles that I knew well from having heard its use before to create an instant of sympathy and empathy for herself during a highly wrought moment—“We should each go our own separate ways now.”

She paused—it was my turn. I hesitated for a second as thirteen wonderful, blessed months raced in a jumble through my mind. I loved her deeply, and she had said many months earlier, while crying at the realization, that she loved me, but now she obviously wanted nothing further to do with me, I had somehow become a leper to her. In a sudden, three minute termination interview over the phone I had just been discharged.

 I remembered how she had definitely kept me sealed off in July from any of her friends back here that she visited when she came back for a week to see her dental specialist, although many of them had seen us as a couple before she’d moved away in February. I drove a thousand miles gallivanting all over with her that week, but I never met even one friend of hers except her friend in Charlotte for two minutes in the driveway in the dark while we unloaded her bags before I drove away to return home, because it had been made clear that there was no room for me in her friend's expansive house that night or by her side during the next two days’ activities either.

And except for her sister, whom I had contacted on the afternoon of her accident in September of 2022 to say that she was in the ER, I don’t think anyone else in her family knew that I existed or that we were in a “serious relationship” all those months, to use her own words to her sister. Or maybe they did, or perhaps they found out from her sister when my presence didn’t fade away after she had fully recovered and effected her move out west, and they were aghast that she was still in a “serious relationship” with a white, East Coast liberal who fervently believed in choice, sensible gun control, and that women or gay persons could serve as pastors or priests every bit as well as heterosexual or sacerdotally celibate men, stances which I had perceived over time to be anathema in whole or in part to some or most of her immediate family members her age.

I thought with an aching heart of the common grief we had shared those many months of close togetherness over our estranged children, a son and a daughter for her and three boys for me, as a result of our separate, bitter divorces and the pernicious influences exerted thereby upon each set of tender children by other, abusive adults (Parental Alienation Syndrome, or "PAS," is a form of abuse--towards children). Now a descent back into that yawning, lonely void, alone again without a friendly voice to share my sorrow with any more, was my immediate and probable long term or lifelong prospect once again.

 "Goodbye,” I said. A tiny voice came back, “Bye.” The connection was severed.

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Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology

 Here is an interesting article in the Washington Post by a student who attended the Thomas Jefferson High School of Science and Technology in Fairfax County, the best technical public high school in the land. The author made the most of the education opportunity presented but laments that the school hasn't kept up with the changing demographics of our nation as represented by the population current makeup of the county and suggests that it would have been better to attend a local public high school for a better life experience which would or could have led to a more productive and rewarding life.

This is interesting to me since my oldest child attended TJ for four years and certainly would have had a more productive or at least a more rewarding life if he had attended a local high school in the city of Falls Church or the county of Arlington instead. He squandered his magnificent opportunity by attending this school (which was his choice because he could have otherwise attended an elite top-ten boarding prep school, Lawrenceville, perhaps the Stanford of high school education instead), staggered out of TJ with the bottom high school diploma of three grades in Virginia (about equal to a GED diploma after four years at the premiere public technical school in the nation), a general diploma rather than a regular  high school diploma or a magnet school diploma. This was during the multi-year, quarter-million-dollar divorce engineered by his mother during which, in my opinion, her covert narcissistic predilections overcame the immature wills of our three minor children through the perpetuation of PAS (which many persons knowledgeable of its pernicious scourge label a form of child abuse) for her own petty personal aggrandizement of her sense of her self.

Our oldest child, a talented, bold, smart, athletic pre-teen, a mega-achiever when pushed or nurtured, never went to college after being let out of TJ with his shop-class diploma, and lapsed into internet gambling, being a boy-Friday for the scumbag divorce lawyer who took his "case" to sue his father for fiduciary breach during the divorce (the case was thrown out of court, with sanctions assessed) and perpetrating ever-incomplete schemes on go-fund-me pages.  In his foisted-upon bitterness as a child (by her coterie of mercenary adult "professionals"), the lad, now a fully mature adult, changed his name, lived I think at his mother's next husband's residence and hasn't communicated with any Lamberton (the name he eschewed on his 18th birthday) for over fifteen years.

So I think the article's author might be right.  The experience my oldest child received at TJ wasn't representative of any child's that I know of, when I was effectively shut out of any involvement by TJ of any involvement (or even discussion, really) of my child's continuing high school education by TJ administrators who absolutely adhered aggressively to the fallacious, sexist common principle prevalent in domestic law that "mother knows best."  I'm sorry for you, Jimmy; perhaps TJ wasted your life; instead you could have gone to Yorktown like your brothers who both graduated from VCU, or Lawrenceville where your grandfather (Carleton, Yale Law School), your uncle (Yale, Wharton MBA), and I went (CU, UVA Law School).

Who you gonna call?

When my vision started failing in my right eye, I underwent two emergency surgeries upon my eye a week apart.  Each time when I went to see the ophthalmologist, I did not expect to suddenly be scheduled for immediate surgery and I was confronted with summoning a caregiver to come get me afterwards.

I have two friends in the area who would do that for me but they both work and when I called, suddenly they were unexpectedly being asked to leave work for the day to come to my assistance, which each one readily did.  My thoughts about asking for help never turned to any of my three sons, all men around thirty now, two of whom, I believe, live in the state, three lads who I helped bring into this world and whom I bestowed love and care upon for all those years until, during and since the nuclear divorce launched upon the family by their mother whom I believe to be a covert narcissistic who overbore their immature wills for her gratification at the time, and they haven't communicated with me or any Lamberton since then.

As I have publicized, every holiday at noon I go to the same restaurant for lunch, hoping for a fresh start someday with one or more of them, also I fruitlessly went to pick them up on every other Friday for court-ordered visitation until the last one turned 18 (their mother showed them how easy it is to be a scofflaw) and I provided full college tuition and fees for two of them without a word of thanks from either of them, and still hold a full tuition plan for the third (although the IRS has demanded that the plan be vacated so taxes on it can be collected). That is what familial love demands and manly duty requires, in my estimation, generous and upstanding attributes I obviously didn't impart to these three mighty unusual adults who apparently still worship at the altar of the mother that they love oh-so-much.

As I approach my seventies, it makes me sad that I couldn't count one bit on any of my three fully mature adult sons when I really needed help. I have a third operation coming up in a few months and I want them each to know that if anything unexpected happens they would probably be contacted by one of their Lamberton aunts or uncle, if possible, to provide a small amount of cash to each one of them.

January in the rear-view mirror

I was running in the District earlier this month with a friend of mine from where I used to work before I was forced to retire involuntarily and I remarked to her that the first two months of any year were the worst for me in terms of mood because of the proximity to the just-past holiday season and the fact that the birthdays of my three estranged sons come in rapid succession during these two months. Below is me dining at noon at a local restaurant on my middle child's birthday near where we used to live before all the divorce business was secretly launched by their mother.

It was, as I explained to my running partner, as if my ex-wife loaded my three young children for a drive to her parents' house 400 miles away for spring break while I remained behind to work and she drove around the corner and crashed horribly and all three children died, for the amount I've seen my children since then. They live on in my memory although not in my present or presence; here's how I remember my middle child, the most sober and earnest one of the three, someone who you couldn't put one over on, except for the dastardly manipulative influence of his egocentric mother and her coterie of child-devouring "professionals" during the lengthy divorce proceedings all those years ago.

I dined as usual with the Empty Chair a little while later in the month on MLK Day at the same restaurant, as is my custom on their birthdays and any holiday. The conversation was lacking, the hope remained present as ever and the fare was delicious as is usually the case.

Ah, memories.  I'm glad January is behind me; here's a portrait of that month's birthday boy during happier times, before the paid-gun reprehensible adults in the domestic law arena swooped in upon the kids to brainwash them at the behest of their mother and tear the family asunder permanently, as is their wont and their life work, proud work of adults overbearing the wills of mere children.

The Frogman

It returned to my world on the day before Father's Day.  A fighting frogman, a black plastic warrior long buried in the mossy gravel of the driveway, hidden away for almost two decades.

My middle son, Johnny, whom I haven't spoken with nor heard from since 2004, used to play with plastic army men in the yard when he was little.  His mother used to say he was the most like me of my 3 sons; I used to play interminably with green (and tan) little plastic army men when I was little.

I ran into his mother, my ex, on a public sidewalk a couple of years ago and asked her if Johnny was alive, well, married, had children, and where he lived, because I don't know the answer to any of those 5 questions.  She stonily refused to answer even a single word, and I walked away having confirmed, in my mind, that she was the destructive covert narcissist I had come to discover her to be, in my opinion.

It's ironic that this soldier returned to the fold on the eve of Father's Day, to be placed on the shelf in Johnny's bedroom with 4 or 5 other toy soldiers who have come home in a similar fashion over the years.  Perhaps someday the prodigal son, his will having been overborne by his mother and her coterie of accomplices during the lengthy divorce when he was a vulnerable minor, in my opinion, will return to the fold also.

Still Waiting.

The Columbus Day holiday is upon us, and at noon as usual I'll be at my favorite lunch spot in Westover.  I go there on most holidays and birthdays in the fading hope that one or more of my three estranged children will show up so we can begin the first day of the rest of our lives.  (My youngest child Danny, and middle child Johnny.  I have no idea what they look like as men.)

It's been over nine years of absolute silence from any of them, and no sibling of mine (their aunts and uncle) has heard from any of them in more than a dozen years.  Classic PAS, I'll leave it at that.  (My oldest, Jimmy, is on the left in this picture grabbed off the Internet.)

I miss and love my children as any father would.  (Waiting for Godot at noon on Veteran's Day 2014.)

One year ago...

A year ago, as Thanksgiving approached, I had a chance encounter on a public street with the mother of my three children, none of whom has spoken to me, or any Lamberton, in over seven years. They were ripped away from us extra-judicially by their mother, Sharon Rogers Lightbourne, who engaged in parental alienation syndrome ("PAS") and overbore their wills as minors, given her dominant position with them in terms of time of physical custody, since the Plain-Jane visitation the court imposed gave them to her 81% of the time.

My lawyer wryly characterized the sexist attitude of the domestic law court in Virginia as Mother Knows Best.  Oh, the untold number of secret visits to psychologists my three sons were subjected to in those hours, unbeknownst to me, which induced in their juvenile brains a frenzy of excitement and side-taking as they were caught up in the adult drama of a couple splitting asunder, expensively and publicly (lotsa hearings, lotsa costs)!

When I encountered Sharon a year ago just before our national day of thanks, I asked her five questions about each child.  Is he alive?  Is he well?  Is he married?  Does he have children?  Where does he live?

I received in return only stony silence, a true glimpse into her cold, flinty heart, because those are things that any parent would tell the other parent, no matter what.  JJ&D, I'll have Thanksgiving dinner with your Aunt Melissa this year, give us a call or stop by, she's in the book.

Heathcliff Is the Model

I'm reading Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte.  Here is a quote from it that I dedicate to the mother of my three children who, during our divorce proceedings last decade, acted in concert with a coterie of agenda-driven "professionals" to overbear the wills of these tender young minor children, the end result being that their dad was ripped away from them extra-judicially.

On the night she dies, narcissistic Catherine bespeaks her true inner self to her paramour Heathcliff, the dark foundling who bestrides the pages like a super egoistic Iago.  All will be destroyed at the altar of self-worship.

"' I wish I could hold you,' she continued bitterly, 'till we were both dead!  I shouldn't care what we suffered.  I care nothing for your sufferings.  Why shouldn't you suffer?  I do!  Will you forget me?  Will you be happy when I am in the earth?  Will you say twenty years hence, 'That's the grave of Catherine Earnshaw.  I loved her long ago, and was wretched to lose her, but it is past.  I've loved many others since; my children are dearer to me than she was, and, at death, I shall not rejoice that I am going to her, I shall be sorry that I must leave them!'  Will you say so, Heathcliff?'"

Friend without the Are

Fifteen questions, spoken with a pause between each one and nary an answer in return, can be rattled off non-hurriedly in under a minute.  That was the case last fall when I had a chance public encounter with the mother of my three estranged sons, from whom I and the rest of my clan haven't heard a single word in over eight years.

I asked her five questions about each son.

Is he alive?
Is he well?
Is he married?
Does he have children?
Where does he live?

She met each question with stony silence, to match her heart.  I added a comment at the end, "That's information any parent would give the other," and then said as I walked away, "I'm sorry for you."

There were several other persons present, including her current husband.  Happy birthday, Jim.

I'll bet anything that he knows the answers to those fifteen questions.  Somehow I don't think he's an independent actor though.

He was walking alongside of the mother of my children as the two of them, and five or six other people, were walking a German Shepherd when I asked her these basic questions about our children, so he obviously heard the questions too.  And his silence to an anguished father was as stony as hers.

Speaking to James Bradley Rogers, John Henry Lamberton & Daniel Wilson Lamberton.

Hey kids, call me. I have news about one of your aunts that you should hear.  Speaking to James Bradley Rogers of Northern Virginia, also John Henry Lamberton and Daniel Wilson Lamberton.

The Encounter

I eased my vehicle down the bank's ATM car lane, hoping to use its single ATM machine.  There were two people already using the ATM, both pedestrians standing on the 3-foot cement skirt suitable for interloper pedestrian utilizers of the ATM machine.

I recognized her immediately.  Super platinum blonde (she should be grey like me), heavily lined face (she's older than me), she was standing submissively, or perhaps dominantly as befits a shrew, behind her current husband, who was crouched over the ATM machine working it for cash, apparently.

My ex.  The woman who destroyed my relationship with our 3 precious children through her manipulations upon these vulnerable minor children during six years of ruinous divorce litigation she initiated and drove along with her coterie of paid whores, "professionals" (you murderers-of-childhoods and family-destroying enablers know who you are).

I drove on by as she glanced at me and then looked away with no apparent recognition; obviously she doesn't recognize my current car.  But I saw her clearly and experienced NOTHING, not hatred for her ruining my life (or rather, my children's lives) nor nostalgia at over twenty years living together wasted (she was ice-cold) nor rage at her some-would-term-it abusive treatment of my children (classic PAS) nor pity for her at her soon-enough accounting for her worldly actions in depriving our children of their father and his family at St. Peter's gate.

I forgave her years ago, and now she is nothing to me.  It was so clear to me as I drove by this wreck with no feeling whatsoever.

I'll See You There

The call came in on my land line last night, too late for solicitor calls, so I answered it.  It was my sister, who hasn't called me in years.  I waited for the bad news I knew was coming.

Her stepson died the previous night at age 21.  I knew he had been used as a lifelong pawn by his biological mother against the father, my sister's husband, in the interminable warfare certain parents wage in their endless quest to get back at spouses who have "failed" them.  Now the boy is free and those left behind are utterly devastated.

I know whereof I speak.  My three children, now adults, haven't spoken to me in years because of their mother's use of them "up to their armpits" in our divorce proceeding.  I hope they are all alright, but I have no idea whether they are even alive.

My ex-wife surely believes in her never ending rage that I will go to hell.  If so, I will see every single mother or father or "professional" who has ever involved a minor child in a mindless pursuit to utterly destroy the other parent.  Meanwhile, rest in peace, sweet troubled young man whose childhood was stolen away.

What are your principles?

I performed another useless act today, going at noon on Christmas day to a restaurant, having invited my three estranged sons by internet (I don't know their addresses, emails or phone numbers) to a lunch "date" I set up by this blog.  Their Mother, a first grade school teacher, refuses to give me any information about them (even whether they are well or not).

Of course none of them showed.  PAS, a form of child abuse, lives and thrives in our Western world.

Here's my FB post from today: Sorry you couldn't make our lunch "date" today JJ&D. Merry Christmas. Would love to see you sure wouldn't want to be you.

I'm 60. I treasured my relationship with my Dad, who died when he was 61.

'Tis The Season

Christmas time is upon us.  For a person like me without children, it's a depressing time.

Actually I have three sons, ages 26, 24 and 23, and I presume they are well although their Mother refuses to share any information with me about their well being or even their addresses (she's a first grade school teacher in my town).  None of my now-adult children has communicated with me for over half a decade, or with any Lamberton for almost a decade.

Cutting off one side of the family is a classic hallmark of Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS), which some people (but not me!) contend is a form child abuse perpetrated by the primary custodial parent using the power inuring to the chief caregiver to insidiously overbear the will of emotionally vulnerable children.  In my case, the standard final decree which was issued following the custody trial (joint custody & visitation every other weekend) gave me 16% of the total time with my children, which within a year had been subverted extra-judicially to zero percent of the time by the invidious actions of the coterie of "professionals" aligned with (paid for by) the Mother (their sick influence whipped one of my children into such a frenzy that he expressed violent ideation against me and himself--shame on all you "professionals").

But don't take my word about these divorce wars, read for yourself the findings of the Virginia Appellate Court upholding almost $50,000 in costs and sanctions being assessed against the Mother for her actions (pages 5-6 are especially revealing).  And have a Merry Christmas with your families, you all.

Grandfather Twilight

I was rummaging around in the basement, trying to re-order my cinder-block-and-wood bookshelf I have down there.  It's got three 12-foot long shelves filled with books I've read.  Only half of  one shelf is literature or fiction, the rest contain history, mostly Civil War or World War Two books.

I came across a slender children's book pressed between two huge historical tomes that I have been thinking about and searching for for years, Grandfather Twilight by Barbara Berger (c1984), which I used to read to my three kids at bedtime.  It's about a kindly bearded old man living in a hut in the woods who closes his book at the end of each day, takes a pearl from an endless strand in a locked wooden chest he keeps and, followed by his loving dog, walks to the edge of the sea to gently release the glowing orb into the sky at twilight where it slowly rises and enlarges until it becomes the moon.  Then he returns home to lay down and sleep, good night.

As I worked out the devastation bestowed upon my life by my ex when she parentally alienated my children during our interminable and obscenely expensive divorce litigation, which induced them to walk out of my life forever half a decade ago, I went over the countless wonderful things I did for and with my sons (yeah, that's right Jimmy, Johnny and Danny), and I thought often of the times I read them this wonderful book.  No matter where I looked I couldn't find our copy of it.  Not actually having it was frustrating, but divorce teaches you that possessions are mere things and immaterial and the real valuable "stuff" resides stored in your memories.

I actually have our copy of Grandfather Twilight now, after years of wishing that I had it.  The book, with its lush pictures and wonderful story, is as beautiful as I remembered.  I love this book, but not half as much as I love Jimmy, Johnny and Danny, who reside in my memory as three precious children still.

Where Black is the Color and None is the Number

Youngest son, I hope to see you at 8 pm on your birthday at the Lost Dog Cafe in Westover for dinner. I miss you, I love you and I want to be a part of your life.

Just as I miss my middle son, and my oldest son, and love them and want to be a part of their lives. You both know how to get in touch with me, as I live in the house where you all grew up in, my work number and residential numbers are listed and my email address is my first and last name, no space, @yahoo.com.

And What'll You Do Now, My Darling Young One?

I'm sorry you couldn't join me for lunch this week on your birthday at the Lost Dog Cafe, oldest son Jimmy. I haven't seen nor heard from you since Peyton Manning won the Super Bowl.

You had no part in your Mother's divorce from me, being a child at the time. Western style domestic law is unbelievable, perhaps it'll come full circle and engulf you too in the future. (What goes around comes around.)

I hope not. I love you and miss you, and want to be a part of your life.

James B. Rogers, my address is the same as the house where you grew up in, and my number is 202-326-3274. You're a spittin' image of a Lamberton, actually.

Happy Birthday Dad

Last month was my Dad's 86th birthday. He died a quarter century ago when when I was 34.

In the 20th century, Winston Churchill was the greatest person I knew about. In my life, my Dad was the greatest person I knew.

Lawrenceville standout, Peleliu veteran, Okinawa veteran, Carleton grad, Yale Law School grad, Cleary Gottlieb partner, civil rights activist, fairest man I ever knew (he made me believe the Rule of Law was attainable and would make all things possible, and that there were actually men who had no price), father, husband and heroic in death. He died in my presence, and all I could say as this transcendental occurrence transpired was "God bless you, Dad."

Maybe he went to prepare our place by the right side of the Lord in the House of my Father. I remember selfishly thinking at age 34 that the cushion between me and God had been removed.

He was 61. I'll be 60 within three months.

I came within 20 seconds of drowning two years ago and feel sorry for my three adult kids, who haven't communicated with me since before they were of the age of majority. This pretty commonplace Western tragedy is directly the work of their mother, who overbore their wills as adolescents during the divorce for her own purposes. Mother knows best, and American courts lap it up. She's a true feminist's nightmare.

If I hadn't made my peace with my Dad during those five months when he was terminally ill, I would not be a man. Did I say I was sorry for my three sons who are letting their opportunity to know their Dad slip away?

Anyway, James Wilson Lamberton, Minnesotan, son, brother, husband, father, soldier, scholar, wise man, lawyer, great man, American hero.

Ol' Man River

This month saw the birthday of my middle son, John H. Lamberton. Next month will see the birthdays of my oldest child, James B. Rogers, and my youngest child, Daniel W. Lamberton.

I invited Johnny, whom I haven't seen nor heard from in years (he and his brothers became estranged from me in a classic case of Parental Alienation Syndrome foisted upon them as children by, in my opinion, their mother, Sharon R. Lightbourne), to have dinner with me at a nearby restaurant on his birthday but he never showed. He's an adult now and lives with his choices, and personally I think it unseemly that he asked me to arrange for full payment of his college tuition and fees and unprincipled that he accepted every cent of the payments I provided for when he regards me as so odious.

I haven't seen nor heard from Jimmy in half a decade now, nor from Danny in almost four years, and nobody in my entire family has heard from any of them in eight or nine years. But parental love is so strong that it transcends individual grief and always seeks to succor familial victims of abuse (in my opinion PAS is child abuse). (Right: Jimmy, striker and sometime goalie for the McLean Sting, circa 1999.)

I use this forum out of necessity because their mother refuses to disclose their addresses to me; so Jimmy, please join me for lunch on your birthday at noon at the Lost Dog Cafe in Westover, and Danny, please join me for dinner on your birthday at 8 pm at the Lost Dog Cafe in Westover. We'll start out a day at a time as father and son(s) in living out the rest of our lives from there. (Left: Danny watches as Johnny reaches into a lobster tank at a restaurant in Maine, circa 1999.)