I'm not Job. I want MY family back, not some replacement, consolation prize.

I had a nightmare last night-I dreamt my grandson's mother is going to put the baby up for adoption to strangers. I woke in a complete depression at 0330, and tossed and turned until the alarm went off at 0530.

I'd say this depression is seasonal,but I can't, because it isn't. It my only and constant companion, and has been since 1981.

Fox is a miracle, the hope of all my lives, and his 18 month old son is the second. They embody the fulfillment of God's promise; the loss of them is the crushing blow.

What is life without one's family?

When I was a little girl, my step-mother (AKA Alice Capone/The Wicked Witch of the West) delighted in sowing strife within the family. She actively turned family members against one another, and did all that she could to destroy the unity we all craved. Loyalty was not safe, because Dirty Dort-another of her family nicknames-had ways of punishing one and all for showing any loyalty or familial love. She made the holidays especial nightmares.

But God promised me a different life, a real family, and I clung to that promise with total faith.

I tried to maintain a relationship with my brother and sisters, but shortly before our dad died, true colours made it painfully clear that I had no responsibilty towards any of them any more. I turned my back, and concentrated solely on Fox and his sister.

My daughter didn't like the rules, and at 16 she went to live with her father in Hawaii. My rules-God's, the Ten Commandments.

Fox, while difficult, hung in there until Crusty bailed, but after all we had been through, he too decided the rules didn't apply to him, and he turned away from everything clean, and wholesome. He actively shunned, abhored, and decried "wholesome.

FF to summer '03. Fox's off/on girlfriend-the one who eventually went to RI to become a stripper-got pregnant and then lost the baby. Fox was furious, because she had gone off her birth control pills without telling him. Fox was relieved she'd lost the baby.

He broke up with her, but somehow they spent an evening together, and she found herself pregnant again. He tried living with her, but they couldn't work it out, and he moved in with me for a while.

Then he started going to LaMaze classes with her toward the end of the pregnancy. When the baby was born he was there. He tried to make it clear to her that they were not a couple, she didn't get it, and told everyone they were together.

When she finally figured out he meant it, and that all he wanted at that point was a relationship with his son, she told him he could not see the baby unless he was with her.

He walked.

He cursd God, me, and everyone else, got a job, and lived in a successon of hovels until finally moving back in with me.

When the baby was four months old, she and her mother brought the baby to see me. The next day she and Fox met so that he could see his son.

A few weeks later Fox caved, and they were engaged.

They planned a wedding, I planned a family life.

Then she started leaving the baby more and more, and we found out she had been leaving the baby from the beginning, from the day she brought him home from the hospital. When I found out that one of the people she had been leaving the baby with for extended periods was her prescription drug addicted aunt with a history of DUI/car wrecks, I flipped.

I tried talking to both of them-calmly. I told her that babies aren't puppies-you don't give them away when the responsibility becomes more than you are interested in. I told Fox he needed to spend more time with his family.

Which made me the bad guy.

I went over to pick her up for work-Fox was to have the baby for the day. When I got there, he tried to get me to take the baby and go, but he didn't explain what was going on. He glared at me-as usual-and didn't explain, so when she came downstairs and told him to make sure to send all of the baby's diapers with his grandmother, I lost it.

I lost it quietly, reserving my anger for the privacy of the car as I drove this evil scut to work, and even then I stayed reasonable. I said, "There are a lot of names I would like to call you right now, but I am hoping I am just angry, and don't mean them. I am going to tell you this is a HUGE mistake, you will regret this when your son turns away from you. His whole life is you and Fox, but when he sees you his face lights up, and how you can send him off is impossible for me to understand!"

She said "Don't raise your voice to me."

So I moved my voice 400 miles or so north.

Oh God, I AM NOT JOB!

To make a long story shorter, somehow I turned out to be the 'bad guy' and she sent the baby to live with his maternal grandparents-people with issues of their own to cope with.