Does Time REALLY Heal All Wounds?

When I was 18-years-old, I met my daughter’s father. We dated and although our relationship was very tumultuous (he was abusive), we planned and had our daughter. I was 20 when she was born; young and so very naive.

We were together 3 years and the day before her 1st birthday, he left to join the Marines. He'd always wanted to join and being the good little girlfriend I was, I encouraged him to join and follow his dream. I knew it would be hard but he promised he'd send for me once he was stable... my fairy tale.

We maintained a long distance relationship for about a year after he left.

He met someone while stationed in North Carolina (a friend of a friend of my sisters, coincidentally) and I found out about it. I was devastated. I confronted him and we broke up…

Time went on and we tried to maintain an amicable relationship “for the baby.” I didn’t take him to court for child support. He actually had me sign a waiver of child support garnishment (a form he got from his superiors). This is where it all began. Again, I was so young and naive. This would help him right?

I started dating again and when he found out he was extremely angry with me. How dare I bring another man around my daughter? How dare I attempt to move on?

One day he called and said he was getting orders to go to Japan the following year. He asked if he could bring my daughter with him. Absolutely NOT. He hadn’t maintained much of a relationship with her to begin with since he was away. Why would I let her go all the way to another country on the other side of the planet with him?

We fought about it for days. Finally, I compromised and said he could spend a few months with her where he was stationed in North Carolina, but then she would have to return home. This way they could bond and he would go to Japan knowing his relationship with her was strong.

We did that for a few months. I paid half of her child care every month while she was with him.

One month I was late on a payment. He called me livid. That's when the threats started. He would say he was not returning her. He called me an unfit mother and other names. He was downright nasty. I knew where this was going. He said he wasn’t bringing her back. He wasn’t bringing her to an “unfit mother who lived in the projects!” We fought. I cried (a lot). Then I told him what he wanted to hear. “Fine.” I knew if stopped arguing, he would have to bring her back to get clothes, right?

When he returned to NY he came with papers for me to sign. I went to pick up my daughter for a play date and he whipped them out. “I can’t sign that right now. Let’s talk about this later,” I said. Did he know what he was asking me to do? I mean, did he really understand?

I brought her to where I was living in the Bronx at the time and that’s where it got really ugly. I called him. “I can’t sign my daughter away. This wasn’t our agreement. We agreed you would bring her back! You were supposed to be going to Japan. It's only now I find out that it was all a lie! You planned this whole thing!”

He flipped out. “Where the HELL are you?? I’m going to pick up my daughter right now!” I would never say. We fought for days, I hid in the Bronx during the entire ordeal with my daughter. It was surreal.

Finally the day he was supposed to return to base, he called. “Okay, since you’re staying with her, let me just say goodbye. Let me say goodbye to my daughter. Bring her here and you can pick her up in the morning.” “Here” was his sister’s house where he was staying during leave. Reluctantly, I agreed. He sounded so sincere. Like he really just wanted to say goodbye. I had my sister take her. I couldn’t even look at him.

I called her that evening and we spoke. I told her I would pick her up first thing in the morning. She was so happy. She was 5 and about to start preschool. I had looked into a private school for her where I knew she would thrive and was looking forward to her starting. She'd been tested and everything. She would be enrolled into a gifted class. I was so proud.

The next morning I received a voicemail from his sister. It was 7:30 AM. The message on the phone said, “Hi Lisa it’s me. I don’t know if I have any good news for you. Call me when you get this.” His sister’s voice was solemn. She spoke very slowly and my blood began to boil.

I immediately called her back. “He took her, didn’t he?” The tears began to well up in my eyes. My chest hurt with each painful beat of my heart. My skin went cold and I had goosebumps. “Yea,” she said. “I tried to stop him. I even told him that’s like kidnapping! But he wouldn’t listen. You know how he gets. He left at 4 this morning with her.”

I dropped the phone and I fell to the ground. I screamed and my boyfriend at the time ran into the bedroom. “He took her!!!” As devastated I was, I got dressed and ran up the block to the police precinct on the corner.

I told them what happened. From our agreement right down to his taking her the way he did. They connected me with a grief counselor and asked for the number to where he was staying. They called the local precinct in Brooklyn, where his sister lived and sent a squad car.

“She says your daughter was only here on vacation,” said the grief counselor coldly. “WHAT? She’s LYING! She’s LYING for her brother!!” “She knows EVERYTHING…." How could she do that to me? As a MOTHER how could she lie?! They all looked me as if I were crazy. I felt so defeated. I called my family. They were distraught. Some of them tried to warn me that he would do it, but I never wanted to listen. I didn’t want to think he would be capable of doing something like that. Anything but this.

Time went on and I tried to get her back. I retained an attorney in the county where she was in North Carolina. It cost almost $3,000. It was money which I had to beg and borrow from my family. Money we didn't have. I had to go down to NC several times. Unbeknownst to me, the statute of limitations on cases like this is 6 months (the exact amount of time she was with him). The judge found in his favor because he had already established a life for her and it wouldn’t be in my daughter’s best interest to be removed from his home. Again, I was devastated. I felt defeated.

Right after that, I received a notice of child support. They would begin to garnish my wages RETROACTIVELY! He told them she’s been with him since she was 2-years-old! The LIAR struck again. I felt as if he’d punched me in the gut himself. He kidnapped my daughter and I would be paying for it. This was not justice.

When she was 7-years-old I tried to take this back to court. I mailed 239 letters to every single family law attorney in his county of residence asking if they would take my case. Of the 239, only 1 responded. As I started to get the money together for her retainer, she backed out due to other obligations. Yet another blow.

I gave up. He won…

She had a difficult life with him growing up. He was emotionally abusive and went from woman to woman. He was extremely controlling.

Whenever I would go down to visit her, he gave me a problem and made it very difficult to see her. I had to call the police several times just to enforce my rights of visitation.

There were times I would call and no one would be home. I would call constantly and go for months without knowing how my little girl was. I had no clue if she had eaten or if she was doing well in school. I couldn’t even hear the sound of her voice. I began sending her letters through the mail, but she NEVER got them.

One day when she was 17, his new wife reached out to me. She demanded to know why my daughter didn’t live with me. She said my daughter needed me. How could I abandon her? I began to tell her what happened. She stopped me and said, “You know what? This answers a LOT of questions. Would you like to see her?” Of COURSE! I was elated at the possibility, but how? I couldn't afford a flight at the time. I made very little money.

The very next day she bought me a round-trip ticket to Florida (where he had since moved). She picked me up at the airport and together we drove down to my daughter’s school so that I could surprise her.

As she came out of school, I could spot her right away. She screamed, “Wait… is that my mom? You guys! That’s my MOM!!!!!!!” I got out of the car and she bolted right toward me. We hugged for what seemed like an eternity! It was the absolute best feeling of my life. I could smell her hair, look into her eyes; her friends all took pictures on their smartphones. It was just like a movie.

We spent the afternoon together. She went home and her father found out I was in town. He was angry with her for not telling him even though she had no idea. He tried to ground her so that I couldn’t see her. I had to send the police to their home because she called me hysterically crying that he’d pushed her into the bedroom and locked the door. He forbade her from coming out.

The police arrived and they found him holding his 2-year-old trying to act as if nothing had happened and everyone was crazy. So typical.

She spent the rest of the week with me. We cried, laughed, it was amazing. Soon after that she went to live with a friend and left her dad’s house.

Amber’s stepmother left him. One day we went through an old box she took from their garage and found the letters I had mailed to her all those years ago. He received them but never gave them to her. They were still sealed with the stamps still on them. I couldn't believe they were there. In that box.

Her stepmother gave them to me. “It’s time she knows.”

As I handed them to her, I could see my daughter grow angrier. "I NEVER saw these!!! Why would he DO THAT to me?!”

She sat reading them and cried.

She moved out soon after that to live with a friend while she finished high school. She invited me back to attend her graduation and Cap ceremony. He was not invited. I was so very happy to be able to share those moments with her.

She moved to Tallahassee to attend school and to get away from him.

She’s now 23-years-old and has moved back to NYC to be closer to me. She found an apartment two blocks away from where I live.

Does time really heal all wounds? I'm not sure.

It’s been 17 years and it’s taken me this long to be able to talk about it. Some days I can share this and I’m perfectly fine; other days I still break down. I feel very strongly that writing this will provide a much-needed release from the years of pain and stress this has caused. Most of all I need to forgive him, even though I know I will NEVER hear the words “I’m sorry” from him. It's okay. This has weighed on me for much too long and I’m tired. This is the opportunity to move forward, for both my daughter and I.