PROUD OF THE MAN MY SON IS BECOMING

This photo was taken yesterday... yesterday on my time scale but nearly fourteen and a half years ago in reality.

When Marcel was this small I couldn't begin to imagine the adult he would become but today I am starting to see who he will be.

Life doesn't always turn out how you expected but you do your best for your kids as they grow.

When I left his dad, when he was eight, I was convinced that I was doing the right thing. It was right for me because I didn't love him any more. But more than anything I thought it was imperative for my boys that I show them the consequences of neglect in a relationship. I figured that if I stayed, I was tacitly telling my boys that they didn't need to make any effort with their future partners and the ultimate outcome of that could be their partners walking out on them, potentially taking their kids away many years down the line. I had to leave to protect them from future heartbreak, otherwise I would have failed them.

Although I knew divorce was best, you never know if your kids are going to see that. It takes a certain maturity to get there, I imagine.

Today I was driving my child into town.

We talk a lot these days. Suddenly, spontaneously, he came out with the words I have secretly needed to hear for the last six years, but that I didn't expect to hear until he had a family of his own:

I'm so glad you and papa got divorced, he suddenly revealed. It was the best thing you ever did, mum. I can't begin to imagine our lives if you'd stayed with him. I remember what it was like, the others don't. You two together is unimaginable to me. When you were with him, you were frankly a bit weird, but now you're you!

Phew - what can you say to that? He is so right. André made me a nervous wreck, Thomas calms me but how can one so young, with so little life experience be quite so astute? I'm a very proud mum.