A Man Could Not "Kidnap" His Own Child Back Then
When I left my first husband in 1970,he snatched our 2-year-old and told me not to take our
paid-for car out of town. Suddenly, I was childless and without a vehicle.
Although I contacted a judge in an effort to get my baby boy back, I was
told that "A man cannot kidnap his own child."
Six months later, when I wanted to
join the Army to make my life better, the Army wouldn't
let me in unless I first filed an adoption petition, so I
would eventually have no dependents. So my first husband
and I filed a petition that neither one of us planned to
finalize. A short time afterwards, when my second
husband finally was free to marry
me, he got drafted and sent to Germany, right before my
second child was born. So when she was 6 weeks old I took
her to Germany, and the Army paid my new husband two dollars
the day we arrived in Germany. The money situation got so
bad that I had to go to work and quit breast-feeding my
baby. Taking care of my new baby girl, I yearned for
my son who had been taken from me by that first husband
on Mother's Day, 1970; so I wrote my first
husband's mother, who had had my child for two years by
that time and told her I was going to fight to get my son
back whenever I returned ot the States. When she didn't
answer, I wrote the Rusk County courthouse, and they sent
me a copy of my little boy's adoption. He had a new birth
certificate that didn't even have my name on it. I was five
thousand miles away when I found out that my little boy was
no longer legally mine.
So I got very depressed and visited a psychiatrist
because I was in Germany and as an Army dependent, my
medical care was free. After all, I had lost my little boy
because of my own stupidity. I had a right to be depressed.
Fast forward 2 years later. My second husband announced
that he no longer loved me, because I had "lost my
mystery." So I VOLUNTARILY got treated for depression.
During my stay in the hospital in Galveston, I was
kidnapped at gunpoint by a man who later confessed to
killing eleven young women and girls. After I got out of
the hospital, my lawyer told me that I probably would not
get custody of my daughter because I had a psychiatric
history. So I voluntarily gave up custody of my second
child to my second husband's parents. So I had had two
children by two marriages and didn't have either one of my
children.
But my daughter wanted to be with me
so I filed for custody and married a man I had only known
for nine days. I went to court when I had only been married
twelve days. The judge told me to come back the next year
and said he would change the custody arrangements if I was
still married to that new third husband. But my third
husband never went back to court. I didn't see my daughter
for SEVENTEEN years. although my first husband's mother
eventually let me see my son. Then after my son grew up and
graduated college, he married this MEAN woman who told me
that she never wanted me to meet my biological
grandchildren because she was scared of me since I had
"lost" two children. Eventually, my daughter came back to
me. But I've never met my biological grandchildren, and I
haven't seen my son in over 20 years. Life sucks that way
sometimes.
But God did give me consolation. He
gave me a wayward stepdaughter who needed help raising her
five half-Black kids.
And I have had a life filled with so
much love that I rarely even thought of those two
biological grandchildren I've never met. And when my third
husband had a stroke, I did what I thought was the right
thing and cleaned his paralyzed rear end for four years
until he died of kidney cancer.
Through all the chaos of my life, I
did manage to graduate college, after attending it for ten
years. And I worked twelve years, so I get retirement now
and social security.
And I have an amazing fourth husband
who has two paid-for houses and a shop, and who can do
anything with cars. The reason I'm telling you all this is
that I wanted to show you that your life hasn't been nearly
as eventful as mine. I've even been homeless a couple of
times. And there were many times when I had no running
vehicle. So I've survived a lot of crap, and you can, too.
It's never as bad as it seems. God always has his hand on
us.
