The Hardest Year Of My Life

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Darlene Mangrum September 21, 2011 English 50 TR 10:30 Essay 1 Final Draft The Hardest Year of My Life I was a very young single parent; I had my son Glenn a month before I turned sixteen years old. My son’s father went to prison when my son was barely two months old, which left me to raise Glenn all by myself. I raised my child for two and a half years alone while his father was incarcerated. When my ex-husband was released from prison, I lived in a different state, but six months after his release, my son and I moved back to California so that son and father could get to know each other. A good company blessed my ex with a job as soon as he was released from prison, so since he had been working for at least six months, I let him have unsupervised visitations with our son on the weekends. Once my ex had built up my trust, he started hinting around about keeping our son for the summer of May 1981. My ex started saying things like “Since I have been working ever since my release, can I please keep Glenn all summer?” He would also put me on the spot in front of my son by saying things like “You want us to get to know each other, don’t you?” On the other hand, he would say, “I just want the chance to show our son how much I love him.” My son was three years old, not old enough to understand. All my son knew was that Daddy finally wanted to spend time with him, and of course, he wanted to be with his daddy. How could I deny these two the chance to get to know each other? For the first three months everything was fine; I was allowed to see my son every other weekend, and I could talk to him any and every time I called him on the phone. However, as it got closer to bringing my baby home, my weekends and phone calls became scarce. My son’s father would make excuses saying things like “Glenn is at his grandma’s for the weekend” or “He cannot talk right now because he
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