It's November 20, 1998.  The upcoming holidays will be the second set of holidays since the end of a one year battle in court to maintain some sort of visitation with my son and avoid financial ruin.  Neither of which really went our way.  Of course, in the process we were financially ravaged to the point of bankruptcy, lost 2 businesses, and time with my child was cut from 5 days a week of liberal visitation to an every-other-weekend schedule.  The one thing I did get was Wednesday night of every week.  We had a child psychologist to evaluate my son and because he had expressed a desire to see me more, the judge gave me Wednesday night of each week.  At least from all this, we managed to get him in church each Wednesday and every-other Sunday morning.
    I suppose the judge who heard our case only listened to that part of our testimony.  I suppose the rest he heard was hers.  I suppose his findings were based on nothing else we said, and on the lies she told.  I suppose my son didn't need the influence of his father nor deserved the right to stay acquainted with grandmothers, grandfathers, and or aunts and uncles who might want a relationship with my son.  Grandmothers and grandfathers don't last forever.  My dad's parents have passed on already.  My mother's parents are closing in on the end of their lives, too.  They have expressed to me how much they want to see my boy.  Money and lack of time throw a wrench into those gears.  My grandmother who is still living is in poor health and has been in and out of the hospital a lot lately.  I warned my ex that one day my grandparents would be gone and she would be the soul reason why they didn't have a relationship with my son Dalton.  She didn't care.
    Christmas has always been a time my family enjoyed.  We would get together and the boys would play football while the girls sung Christmas carols or played some other kind of game.  Mom's would cook and dads would sit around talking about the "good ole days".  Cooking and managing the meals was mainly the ladies job because none of the guys had learned how to cook.  Yeah, yeah, old fashioned I know, but we were family and that made it okay, old fashioned or not.  The bottom line was, we were together and that was all that mattered.
    Christmas comes and Christmas goes and lonely people do desperate things.  My son will feel a growing loneliness because of the type personality his mother has.  She is somewhat of a hermit and sits while everyone else does.  While we were married, she would come to my parents and sit on the couch while everyone else worked or enjoyed each others company while she did nothing.  Regardless where we were, she sat like a bump on a log and wouldn't mingle.  She doesn't love people because she wants to be alone, except where my boy is concerned.  She would like nothing more than to make him like her and he struggles to break those chains and have good social skills.
    One place she is destroying him is in the art of giving.  Christmas is about giving.  Something she knows little about.  She has bombarded him with expensive toys and gifts all year, to the point that last Christmas he opened his toys with us as if he were opening a package of nothing.....and knew it.  However, this years is even tighter with money so gifts will be few and far between.  My wife and I won't be exchanging gifts this year.  Instead, we will get the boys clothes and maybe a toy or two and hope it will mean something to both boys.  Kiegan, our son who lives with us, suffers greatly behind the financial woes bestowed on us by our illustrious judge, whom, I guess looked into the future and thought, "Kiegan deserves nothing for Christmas nor any other time, and Dalton does.  First come, first served."
    Judges want to look so good in protecting kids of divorced families, yet they turn and place the next child, especially of the father's, in a less than desirable situation.  Kiegan is as much as Dalton and vice-versa.  Yet, Dalton is favored by the court and his love is bought by his mom.  Hey, she can afford to.  It's not everyday a 5 year old can get a Sony Playstation, Nintendo 64, all the action figures a child can play with, just walk into a store and get a toy just to be getting, and now a new house.  He said last week they would be getting a new house for Christmas.  I guess one can when one gets $601.66  a month for one child.
    I'm told, by the laws of Alabama and those who interpret it, it takes approximately $950.00 for Dalton, my first born to live each month.  Yet, I bring home now, approximately $1200.00 monthly.  Rule 32 says I owe 57% of the bills plus $75.00 a month for back child support I produced checks on and still I'm told I owe it.  When all was said and done, I began paying her approximately $601.66 a month and was left with approximately $700.00 a month to live on.  The numbers don't add up.  There's three people in our household that need $2850.00 a month to live on, baring in mind it takes $950.00 a month for one child to live, yet it takes more for my firstborn to live than it does for all three of us.
    While they get a new house, we apply for food stamps and hope we can get them.  If not, this next year will be one for the record books.  If Santa is listening and has a gift for us, I hope it involves the necessities we need rather than wants fulfilled when needs are more important.  Moreover, I hope he's a better judge of Christmas than those I've seen judge thus far.