I’ve been writing letters to my grand daughters in Mississippi where they are living with their father. Every time I ask them if they got Nini’s letter, they tell me, “no”. Needless to say, I feel a bit put out by this.
I can’t help remembering the day they left to go live with their father. Frank and I had come to see the girls and were planning on taking them to a little festival in the town where my daughter lives. Court was going to be the next day and we had a feeling it wasn’t going to go well for her. On that day, the girls’ father called my daughter and asked if he could see the girls. She told him that Frank and I were there and that we had already made plans. His response was that the girls didn’t need to have a relationship with us anyway so why couldn’t he see them. Believing in the ultimate karmic/christian fundamental thought process of “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” I told my daughter to tell him he was welcome to accompany us to the festival.
Through accident or no, he spent the majority of that day with the children and in doing so, Frank and I became the outsiders, just trailing along behind with an occasional interaction if we could squeeze one in. The next day the courts ruled in his favor and within 2 hours they were tearfully taken away and put into the car to travel to Mississippi to live with their father- who btw, still lives with his parents and thus they get all the interaction they want with the girls.
Now, I’m sending letters that they say they don’t receive. I know that their grandparents moved to a bigger house now that they have the girls, but I did get the address and have been sending these letters to the proper place. In each letter I ask the girls to send me a little note to let me know they are ok. Willow is old enough to write a simple letter. Now my dilemma is this… do I call them to ‘make sure I have the correct address since the girls say they aren’t getting my letters’ or send my Easter cards by return receipt which only lets me know they were received at the house, but not if the children were given them. I don’t have any problems admitting in a public forum that if I have to pursue Grandparents Rights with the father, I certainly will, but again, I’d rather try the peaceful way and hope that the comment I hear ringing in my ears (“They don’t need a relationship with them”) was perhaps misquoted or some such.
What would you do?
Snippets and Tidbits 