May 17

Dear HollyAngel,

            I have missed you so much these last few weeks.  So many different things have happened and I’ve had to try to explain to several people what is happening with you and I.         I try to give some logical reason why your mom would not want me to see you so that everyone doesn’t think he is just cruel.  It is difficult for me to rehash it so much.  I feel like I spend all of my time defending your mom’s actions.  Anyway, my Nana passed away and that meant seeing my mom’s whole family and they all wondered where you and the kids were.  So that’s why I had to go over it repeatedly.

Enough of that!   I wonder how you are doing not being in gymnastics.  It was such a part of your life and I hope you have been able to fill the space.  I know you’re involved in the Girl Scouts but I don’t hear anything further.  Shaw and Daphne told me you had all performed in the school assembly.  They said you played the recorder.  That makes me so proud!  I remember you practicing and practicing with my tin whistle.  You had “Hot Cross Buns” down to a fine science!  I will be so happy if you make music a part of your life.  It is one of those things that will bring you joy as long as you live.   Not to mention that if you get good with it, you could get a scholarship!  I wonder what else is happening with you; who your friends are and what kind of things you like.  I wonder if you get all of the attention you should when you’re just Holly and not trying to be what everyone else wants you to be.  I just want my baby to be happy, I guess.  I wish sometimes that you’ll forget I was ever in your life so that you don’t have to feel sad that I can’t see you.  But then I think about all of the love I and my family have for you and I don’t ever want you to spend a single moment of your life thinking that you’re unloved and alone, so I want you to remember that I (we) are always here.  We all miss you and love you.  I spend a lot of time just holding you in my mind so you’ll somehow get that love.  I hope that you do.

So what do you think about your mom’s new job?  She’s gone more on the weekends now, huh?  I bet you have more responsibility now.  But that’s not a bad thing.  You will be better off when you get older if you have more responsibility now, trust me.  And I know you and your brother can work well together when you need to.  I just hope you are not expected to do too much.  A girl’s got to have time to play!  =)

So your siblings and I didn’t do anything to exciting last weekend and I had to buy a new car this week so we will not be doing too much for the next several years!  But such is life.  When they come down this weekend I’ll have to think of something cheap and fun.  I wish you would be there to help me.

I Love You, My HollyAngel, and I miss you very much.

Love,

Daddy

April 21st 2010

Dear HollyAngel,
Sorry I haven’t written in a couple of weeks. It is much harder to do so than I had imagined. I can’t think about you without breaking down…even now. I miss you and your siblings so very much! Your mom still hasn’t written to tell me why she made this decision. I don’t get a response when I message her. She did, howeve,r request that I give her the letter from your biological father giving me permission to adopt you. I don’t know that I have it, but if I do, I will give it to you when you are old enough. I assume she wants it so she can begin the adoption process again. Scott will end up adopting you. I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough when I was with your mom to make her complete the process for you and me. I was too focused on keeping the peace to see the end result. If I was stronger, we would still be a family. I talked to my counselor about what I can do to get your mom to not be so mad and to also get you back in my life. She (Dr. Sedano) believes that there is nothing I can do. She thinks that fighting with your mom will just cause more fighting with your mom and the only way to break that cycle is too let you go for now. From the start of all of this everyone has been telling me to “let Holly go”. They don’t see that you’re my little girl and I can’t just let you go. But still, I am at a loss for the next step. I just have to trust in Providence and the strength of my Love.
I will see your brother and sister this weekend (YEAH!) I miss you guys all of the time! I don’t think we’re going do much, though. I have to save money right now. I think I’ll try another church down here. I’ve found the one that Dr. Bob started at way back at the beginning of his career (I don’t know if you’ll remember Dr. Bob, but he is a great man). So we might check that out. And I think I’ll get your siblings to meditate a little as well. And then probably the usual park and such. Maybe we’ll go see your Tia Rae and Uncle Brue.
I’m fine otherwise. Have finals this week so I’m a little stressed but hopefully I’ll squeeze out a couple of “A”s and maintain my GPA. I know you would tell me you’re proud of me if you could. You always say those things to me. I’ll write after the weekend. I Love You, My HollyAngel. I will keep you in my heart every minute of every day and hopefully we will see each other soon. Be good.
Love,
Daddy

How I lost you…

Dear HollyAngel,

I should tell you how it came to be that I lost contact with you.  I will forewarn you that I am not 100% sure if the “why”s involved, but I will try to establish the Truth as I see it. 

Your mom and I were very happy together when we first fell in love.  I thought I had finally found true happiness and that I would know joy the rest of my life by your mother’s side.  We shared our dreams and our fears and we decided that we would face both together.  I remember being filled with our Love and I felt this way through most of our marriage.  But as time passed and our lives became more complicated, it became hard to see our dreams.  We felt overwhelmed by the everyday stresses involved and began to view each other as a source of our problems rather than as solutions.   Your mother and I rarely fought, but when we did it was an event.  The emotional violence perpetuated against us as a family was unfortunate, but most would not have viewed it as exceptional.  We were a typical middle-class family.

During most of our marriage I drank (as did your mom), although it should be noted that I was not your run of the mill drunk.  I always had a good job and I didn’t get violent or abusive when I drank.  Still, alcohol abuse clouds the mind and causes misperceptions.  After realizing that our lives were spiraling downward and also getting deeper involved in my own spirituality, I stopped drinking.  As I became more sober, I began to see very clearly then that my relationship with your mother was tragically flawed.  Somewhere along the way she had lost faith in me and to this day I am unable to re-establish it.  We took a couple of shots at counseling but there was always an excuse not to continue.  Eventually, we separated.  During our separation we had decided to work on our relationship but there was too much too wade through.  I never felt like my efforts during our marriage were reciprocated and your mother never felt I was truly invested in salvaging our relationship.  We began a divorce which would separate you and me, although I didn’t know it at the time.  (During our marriage your biological father signed his rights to you over to me.  This allowed me to adopt you.  We began the proceedings but your mother decided it was in your best interest to renege on her promise to your father and pursue child support.  While I was adverse to this course of action, legally I lacked the ability to do anything other than what your mother wanted.  If I had known that she would eventually keep you from me I would have been much more insistent, but I never for a moment dreamt she was capable of such action.  The adoption process was stopped and the support process was started.  I will never forgive myself for allowing it…never.)  As our separation lingered on, your mom began to view me as a monster that deserved no access to you or your siblings.  Just before, and during the divorce proceedings, she vehemently pressed this singular issue.  Coupled with her efforts to keep me from you were my own attorney’s failures to prove I should be allowed access.  In the end, I lost you and your siblings in a whirlwind of misdirection and twisted truths.  Despite you mother’s assurances that I would have equal time with you and your siblings, my visitations with you were immediately hindered and eventually altogether eliminated.  And although I have legal action I could take, my fear of losing you entirely by provoking your mother’s wrath and a lack of the necessary finances keeps me from pursuing it.  (In fact, this was the grandest of my attorney’s failures.  All I wanted from our divorce was the legal right to continue being your Dad.   It was the first and foremost request I had of him, and he failed it completely).  In the end it seems I have lost you in spite of my prudence.  Only time will tell.

Your mother’s perception of me is her justification for quashing our relationship.  In her mind she is protecting you, or so I like to believe.  The alternative, that her motivation is simply to cause me pain regardless of the psychological impact on you, is incomprehensible to me.

If I had been a better man at the beginning of our relationship, if I had been stronger in the middle or if I had been more vindictive and agressive at the end we might not be here today.  As it stands, I can now only make efforts towards the future.  It is my hope that my efforts will bring you back into my life.

 I’ll write more soon.  I Love you dearly, HollyAngel.

Love,

Daddy

How you found me…

Dear HollyAngel,

I wanted to tell you the story of "Us" ,as I see it anyway, so that you will always know why I Love you, how I Love you and all the reasons why you will always be my daughter.

Once upon a time, I met you at the daycare you and your step brother Connor attended. You were about 18 months old then, though I didn’t meet your mom until you were almost two. I had met you a few times when you and Connor were in the same class but you were just a cute little girl and I was just a random parent. All of the kids knew Connor’s Dad because I was silly and liked to play with you guys when I picked him up. Later, when I was introduced to you as someone who would be involved in your life, it wasn’t like you were meeting a total stranger.

In the process of my comings and goings to the daycare I was fortunate enough to meet your mom. We began dating and consequently she and I fell deeply in love. We were happy together and I became part of your life. From our first interaction I called you HollyAngel. The name struck me as I looked into your beautiful little face and it fit. Your mom and I dated and were married very quickly, I became your Daddy and we never, any of us, acted for a single moment like it was otherwise. In fact, I never referred to you as my step daughter… you are always my baby girl…always MY daughter. Even so, your mother and I decided that we should not ignore the fact that I was not your biological father, so we taught you early on that I was not there when you were born but had come later in your life. In addition, I almost always referred to you by the special name I had given you, though you were aware that it wasn’t your given name. I would tell you that I called you HollyAngel because you were an angel to me. I explained that angels helped people who were lost to find what they were looking for. Being an angel, you knew that I needed a daughter and you needed a Daddy so you helped us find each other. Every time I told you this little tale, you would get all shy and snuggle up to me. And when you got older, you always whispered, “I love you, Daddy” like it was our little secret.

We went through potty training and the birth of you little brother and sister together. I taught you how to dance, was your first Prince Charming and your first horse. We made Daddy Pancakes together (I taught you the secret recipe), we played Hop on Pop and I must have read Fox in Socks 100 times. In the afternoons you would meditate with me while everyone else napped and we would sing for the snow to fall. I held my breath the day we took off your training wheels (you didn’t fall, not once!) and cried when you started school (nobody else knows that). I would tuck you and your siblings in every night and we would recite a prayer we had written...I can't recall it anymore, but we all knew it by heart and we would take turns reciting it. Then I would say "good night" to each of you individually. When I came to you, I would say, "Good night, My HollyAngel...do you know why you are my HollyAngel?"

You would giggle and say, "Why?”

I would say, “Well what do Angels do?

“They help people find things”

“That’s right!” I’d say, “and you’re my angel because you found me for you and you for me…so why did you find Us?”

“Because we needed each other”, was always your reply.

I have always been and will always be very proud to be your Daddy. I have immense pride in you and have always loved to watch you shine. You are my baby girl in every corner of my heart and it will always be so, no matter what happens from here on out. I love you dearly, HollyAngel. I only wish I could have had more opportunity to show you. Even though I miss you terribly now, I will always be thankful that you found me.

All my heart…

Love,

Daddy