(Note: the names in the story have been changed so as not to offend any of the family members involved.)
But my dad saw her take us into her car. And my aunt Ellen was with him, and she advised him not to try and get us. I didn’t know that my dad was at the school and seeing the whole thing. I didn’t know that he was trying to get me and he couldn’t. I just kinda thought he went and started his life all over. I knew that hurt him but I just felt like he gave up. That’s the only thing you could do. But I just felt like betrayed. And it wasn’t the betrayingness, it was just he had to go on, you know. Being with him was the only life I knew. I couldn’t understand what just happened. As a child I just felt like he gave up on us. And in reality he never gave up on us, we got tooken from him. You know how hard would that of been? – Oh God. I don’t know what I woulda done. You know someone took my kids like that and there was nothing I could do.
Ellen was the one telling dad there’s nothing you can do. “You can’t go and grab them. You can’t take them from her. They don’t have your last name. There is nothing legally you can do.” He would’ve been the one charged with kidnapping. And she’s the one to tell him even though it was breaking her heart, “you can’t get them, there’s nothing you can do.” I felt like my aunt blamed herself because you know after it happened she seen what kind of life we had and that really hurt her. But that was a long time ago. It just hurt me as an adult knowing that dad seen that. You know that really bothered me. My mom didn’t even care.
It made my dad sad what happened to us, and he just couldn’t take it and he moved away. I think it really made my aunt mad the way me and my brother was being raised, I think it really hurt her. Because she couldn’t intervene and pull us out. She just had to let it go. And she knew things weren’t right but she couldn’t do anything about it. And dad having moved away, there wasn’t anything she could do.
I member going to her (my mother’s) house and meeting her other kids (stepsiblings). There was Linda and Teddy, my stepdad’s two daughters Leslie and Fawn, and I think Cody had just been born. I member as a child getting thrown in with these other kids – now this is a big impression to me because of my grandma and at dad’s house we wasn’t allowed to say the word “fart”. And when we got there we was allowed to say it, and we thought “Oh my God” because we wasn’t allowed to say fart. We call it a stinker. That was a big impression to me that we was allowed more lenient and not so much being watched by our parents. It was more kids watching kids. Not that it was bad parenting. It was just different. But I member also as a child growing up my step father yelling at my twin brother – when that happened (kidnapping) I think it made us closer because we didn’t understand what was going on – I member my stepfather yelling at my brother saying you’re not her F-ing lawyer. Because he was always sticking up for me; always watching over me like he had to be my protector because we couldn’t understand or get comfortable with what was going on.
I member all of us called each other all names. Everybody had a nickname.
You know when I was growed up, when I would see grandma and Ellen and them, grandma wanted nothing more than for me to get to know my father. But I didn’t know everything that went down you know. And she would always talk about “you need to know your dad”, and that was something she thought was vital important. I thought that time had already passed. You know I had already been married, divorced, had a child. You know I just thought that time would never happen again. But I had an opportunity to make it happen so I went with it. I knowed that dad was a two-time cancer survivor, but I never want to know him when he was sick because then it would’ve been like a pity issue. So later when he got better, I took a chance. I’m glad I did too. It was a bunch of bravery in one way. I had to uproot and move there, so I always kept talking about it. “I wanted to get to know my dad, I want to go see my dad.” I was talking it into existence. I just had that memory of what my grandma kept saying, “You need to know your dad, you need to know your father.” And that was planted a long time ago but I just thought that time was already passed. That I would never get to know him. I had to prove myself with my dad. It wasn’t like I just come here and arms open. My dad kept testing me and tested me and testing me for a while there. But I stood up for it, and now we got a real good relationship. I finally got to know my dad again.