From the box......

He asked why I'd keep those things.....

Letters sent with accusations of an imagined mission to 'ruin him, financially', asking to be exempt from child support as if I had the power to exempt him, professing his newfound understanding for the poor 'deadbeat dads' of the world.
Letters sent to then young children, explaining his absence from their life as being my fault--the loss of their childhood home, my fault. The inability to visit, to send even a card on their birthday or to make a phone call--again......my fault.
And with the letters--photos of a marriage.
Just three photos.
A gaunt, unrecognizable young woman smiling with an angry adult standing beside her, jaw set..... I believe the step-mother saw the handwriting on the wall that I couldn't/wouldn't see.

Why'd I keep those things?
Initially they were kept for legal reasons--but that 'reason' had long since passed.
After five years of living with their father while I dutifully traveled five hours one way to visit every weekend, they refused to return to him and asked to remain with me. They'd asked many times before.
Of course he was angry.
They were angry.
I was angry.
They were kids. I was done letting them live as they were having to live.
I listened to them long enough. I tried different venues long enough.

I'd kept those letters to remove all doubt if anyone doubted.
No one doubted.
They were never needed.

Why did I keep those things?
I'd forgotten they were there.
I'd forgotten the position they were placed in as they angrily handed me letters and openly stated they wouldn't visit him and I couldn't make them.
I'd forgotten.

Time has a way of doing that sometimes--it takes the edge off, softens the hardened and changes the emotional intensity somehow.

I hold no resentments. I wish for him health, wealth, great happiness and a good life.

It was odd thing, tossing those envelopes and photos into the trash.
Even though I'd forgotten, I felt a need to remember....

And there was this pause before I actually let them fall into that bag that's since been carried from the house.....

I think it was some little 'need' in me to ensure history wasn't being 're-written' to deny truth of the circumstances that were.

The written words are now gone.
The photographs--gone....

We'll each be left to the memories as we write them for ourselves.

As it should be.....