33 Years: November 18, 1976 – November 18, 2008

I met the father of my children 33 years ago today; it was the best and worst day of my life. I adore my children and yet the man who fathered them has been an intermittent source of incredible pain.

We met; maybe I can unfold all the intricacies later, but for now suffice it to say we met when I traveled from the city to the Adirondack Mountains to do some consulting on an arts project where he worked. He, whom we will call Richard, as it provides the perfect nickname, met me at the airport and we began an affair that very night, November 18, 1976. We continued from affair, to relationship, although never monogamous, to living together, to talking about marriage, to having two children, (girl and boy) and splitting up sixteen years later, having never married.

Today is thirty three years to the day since I laid eyes on him and after a decade and a half of fighting about work, ethics, child support, haggling over nickels for medical costs and losing a family court battle which ruled that Dick had no legal necessity to provide for his children’s college education, today I receive an email from Richard saying,
“My mother has come into some money and is willing to loan me the funds to pay off my child support debt in return for a document saying there will never be any contact between us, and all debts are paid in full.”

I nearly had to tie my fingers together so I wouldn’t email back,
“How weird, are you aware that this is our anniversary?”

But this man never remembered my birthday let alone the day we met; he recalls everything about himself and I believe this offer came because he needed to be free of the liens on his accounts and the stigma that comes from being a deadbeat dad. That moniker can’t be expeditious in securing employment and his mom must be sick of paying his bills.

But still I pondered the sense of humor and balance the universe seems to possess. I had at one time wanted to write a treatise entitled, Coincidence is my Religion, I know there would be some followers as I hear again and again from politicians, writers, TV characters, mechanics and chefs, meaning random folks, that the universe has a plan. But I love that it also has a seemingly raucous sense of irony.