Children

I still try to keep up with my three children, all sons, none of whom I have communicated with in at least a decade, who in my opinion all became victims as minors during the nuclear divorce of a form of child abuse perpetrated by their mother and her coterie of agenda-driven "professionals" known as Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS).  This phenomenon, a form of brainwashing in which caregivers to tender minds dependent upon those trusted persons overwhelm the childrens' will, manifested itself in the Lamberton case in the form of unjustified, unreasonable and unremitting extreme hatred towards me and everyone in my family.  (The noon hour on Christmas Day.)

One lives next door in Arlington, I think, or maybe in Baltimore, another got married two years ago and moved to Chicago to be able to hang on to his capable and ambitious wife, or maybe they've moved back to Richmond, and the third moved to the Left Coast I think, the only one able to escape the thrall of his mother.  I know nothing else about any of them, I doubt if I would recognize these children now grown into men if I walked past them on the street, and I don't even really know if they are well or even alive because their mother who lives two miles away from me (although her house is now for sale), and who is a covert narcissist in my opinion, stonily refuses to disclose to me a single thing about them or their welfare.  (Twelfth hour of November 11th.)

But on every Federal Holiday, actual day of celebration and birthday of theirs when I am in town I have lunch at noon at the same local restaurant in the neighborhood they grew up in, hoping someone someday will join me.  I have always dined, unfortunately, with the ever-present Empty Chair.  (The empty chair this Columbus Day.)

Hope springs eternal, and I love them and have forgiven them.  Maybe New Year's Day, eh boys?  (High noon on Labor Day.)