What I think

I felt that something wasn't right last week when I received a sudden and unexpected friend request on Facebook from a girl named Laura J. Lamberton, who I think is the wife of my estranged youngest son, Danny.  It had been nine years of radio silence for me from 27 year-old Danny, whom I last heard from when he was 18 when he wrote me a breezy missive asking me to provide full funding for four years of college tuition and fees, which I did.

Indeed, I didn't even know until a neighbor mentioned it to me this summer that Danny got married last year.  Welcome to the family, Laura, and congratulations on your wedding.

I consulted with a few friends and relatives about the friend request from Laura and they all said I should accept right away, that perhaps this was the first step in Danny reaching out to me.  I accepted, which I was inclined to do anyway because I have always been available for my children at any time (tragically I'm estranged from all three of them), and then I was unfriended by Laura within the hour, thus giving me only a momentary and diffused glimpse into Danny's world and then shutting me out again.

I wasn't surprised by this abrupt, frivolous action or made despondent by this tantalizing, almost taunting act of reaching out for a second and then slamming the door shut again with nary a word of explanation.  It's characteristic of what my children became when they were grossly manipulated as vulnerable children by grotesque adults during the divorce who were relentlessly pursuing their own hateful and spiteful agendas by using my children against me, in my opinion.

People Are Strange

People are strange when you're a stranger
Faces look ugly when you're alone
Women seem wicked when you're unwanted
Streets are uneven when you're down
the Doors.

I had stomach surgery last week, which anyone who reads my Facebook posts would know.  I am at home now healing nicely, thank you, expecting a complete recovery, but this gets bound up with the strangeness of my "contact" with the wife of my youngest son, Danny, who has been completely estranged from me (and all Lambertons) for a decade.

The happy couple got married a year ago, as I recently found out from a neighbor.  This information at least told me that my youngest child is alive and ostensibly doing well, information his mother stonily refused to provide to me in response to my direct questions to her on the subject when I happened to encounter her on a public street a year and a half ago (she lives two miles from me).

Last Thursday I accepted a bolt-from-the-blue friend request on Facebook from Laura J. Lamberton, the wife of Danny, and I added a personal greeting to my acceptance of her request, "Welcome to the family, Laura. Congratulations on your wedding."  I have never met the woman and know nothing about her beyond what I gleaned from perusing her FB site for a few minutes after I accepted her request.

Then I went out for a run in the midday August heat to sort out a mass of conflicting things such as my fears about the double hernia repair surgery I was undergoing the next morning, the fact that I was receiving solid information about my youngest child after so many years of darkness, and what it all meant.  By the time I returned, nine miles later and seven pounds lighter, I had been unfriended by Laura and shut out from any information about Danny again.

Was she just purposefully messing with my head on the day before I went in for surgery?  Streets are uneven when you're down.

And the point was, what, Laura?

You might know that I haven't heard from any child of mine in over seven years. This is due to the divorce, a bitter western divorce (google parental alienation syndrome, or PAS).

I recently found out from a neighbor and former friend of mine that my youngest son got married last year to "Laura."  In the past few years I have largely gotten over my natural desire of wanting to be involved with my three offspring, to whom I have always made myself accessible, but who have completely ignored all Lambertons for over a decade (these three boys, now men, didn't grow up with any Lamberton traits, they are all Rogers through and through).

Their mother and her coterie of "professionals," assassins of the childhoods of my children (you know who you are), overbore my children's wills as minors and turned the adolescents against me and all Lambertons.  It will all get sorted out eventually, I guess at Saint Peter's gate, but meanwhile research into the victims of the form of child abuse known as PAS shows that these children grow up lacking any strong emotional ties as adults and they are very insecure and prone to divorce themselves.

Last week I heard from Laura, Dan's wife, at least for an hour, when she sent me a friend request on Facebook out of the clear blue.  When I accepted it, she unfriended me within the hour.

A Wedding Wish

Dear Dan and Laura,

Congratulations on your wedding last year.  A neighbor told me you were married.  I'm sure you'll be very happy.  And Laura, welcome to the family.  Although I have never met you, I'm sure you'll be a wonderful wife to my youngest son.  Enjoy the cooking mat!  And Dan, good luck and I hope the shirt fits!  Since I don't know your address, I'll throw these items in the box of your stuff that I keep in the basement for now.

As ever,

Dad.