Small wins that kept me going
Been thinking about this a lot since someone posted about feeling hopeless. I get it — when you’re in the thick of it, it feels like nothing’s working, nothing’s changing.
But looking back now, there were these tiny moments that kept me breathing. Proper small stuff, but they mattered more than the big court victories that never came.
Like when Ben’s teacher Mrs Harrison would slip me his school reports during parents evening. My ex had tried to get me banned from those meetings, but Mrs H would text me anyway. “Your boy got Star of the Week for his maths.” Just knowing he was still good at sums like when we used to do homework together.
Or when my mate Steve saw the lads at the park one Saturday. They didn’t speak to him — they’d been told not to — but Jake, my youngest, he kept looking over. Steve said you could see him wanting to wave. That broke my heart and gave me hope at the same time.
The solicitor’s secretary who’d ring me when court dates got moved instead of just posting a letter. She didn’t have to do that. Small kindness in a brutal system.
Getting Christmas cards addressed to “Dad” that never came, but finding out later that Emma (my ex’s sister) had seen them writing them. They were still calling me Dad in their heads.
Even the bitter stuff helped sometimes. When my ex accidentally sent me a text meant for someone else, moaning about how the boys kept asking about football training. MY football training that I’d run for three years. Meant they still remembered.
Five years of these crumbs. I saved every school photo Emma smuggled to me, every “your boys are doing well” from strangers at Tesco who knew them.
It wasn’t hope exactly. More like… proof they still existed. Proof I’d been real to them once.
Now they’re back — not fully, it’s complicated — but they’re back. And sometimes Jake still mentions those football drills we used to do.
Hold onto the crumbs, everyone. They’re not nothing.