Dear Editor,
Years ago the father of my baby almost choked me to death while my baby laid quietly on my lap. I wondered how I could be left with the attacker after the police took the report. I wondered why they would leave my baby and me with this man? I was afraid he would kill me that night if I slept. I didn’t know how to escape.
Sometime later I was able to run with my baby to a nearby battered women’s shelter to escape possibly being murdered by the baby’s father.
I can’t say yet what the most painful thing was; it was the most painful thing in my life. It was such tremendous and overwhelming pain, and so intimate to being a mother. So personal and so much a part of mothering my child, and yet done against my will.
I cannot imagine how I could have my baby taken away from me and survive, and my disintegrating state of mind was a merciful way of escaping the tremendous pain and trauma of it all. I did not want to kill myself although I planned how to. I knew I had to stay alive to tell my baby that I loved her and that I did not abandon her. This thought kept me going as I slept outdoors on the cold nights. I was homeless. She does not know ...
The Solano family court has worked to “not change the past” and looks the other way to their part in giving custody of my child to the abuser father and in keeping my child from me. This is against their family codes and it goes against my Constitutional rights.
I can only say that this cannot go unnoticed much longer; this is a tremendous crime against my wanting to love and nurture my daughter and live a safe and happy life. I reported domestic violence and was not protected but have lived a life of tyranny and oppression for the past 14 years. This never goes away and I wake up to it and go to sleep with not having contact with my daughter every single day. She is my only child.
On Mother’s Day, I must tell myself that it is almost over; she will be old enough in a few years and on her own and I hope to tell her the whole truth about what happened to me. That I have always loved her, that I fought for custody of her in court, that I have always wanted to raise her, that I have wanted to hold her and help her through the challenges of her childhood, that I have always wanted to guide her, protect her and take care of her, that she is so precious to me. Just those thoughts keep my hope alive that one day I can be her mother. I love her dearly.
