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Time and distance can't change it: Daddy loves Christopher


by Judi McLeod
July 29, 2002

It’s been four torturous months since his dad has seen Christopher. A time made all the longer because for his entire life up to his disappearance, three-and-a-half year old Christopher had been with his father three days a week. The pictures are still up on the mirror at the salon where his Dad Bill works as a hairdresser. There are no words that can console him since the day his ex-wife whisked the little boy out-of-province.

Beginning back in the days when the toddler was still an infant, and In spite of an acrimonious separation of husband and wife, Christopher was with Bill three days a week.

The wife’s hatred of her husband spilled over to his family members, and before long grandma, who loves the little boy desperately, was "bad" and grandpa was imperiling the lives of the neighbourhood children when driving to pick Christopher up at changeover time.

Still, it was a special relationship that Christopher and Bill shared. The park, the playschool, where the pair met other children and parents, `fishing’ together in the bathtub. Christopher, who turns four in September, had an obsession with dinosaurs and could identify most of them by their complicated Latin names. My fondest memory of father and son is from last Halloween when both, dressed in dino costumes walked hand and hand up Bay Street en route to a special outing at the Royal Ontario Museum.

The end came with a shocking email…"Read this carefully. I have struck down your pleadings. I have full custody of Christopher." The ex-wife had carried through with what she had been threatening for more than two years. She had returned to her parents’ home in B.C., taking the little boy with her.

The emotional wrench was all the more heartbreaking because the last time Bill was to have seen Christopher, a telephone call had come telling him his son was too ill to travel.

Not even knowing the date his son had been taken away, Bill was forbidden to leave the province because of a court case looming a month or so ahead.

Immediately after their separation, two and a half years prior, his wife had laid criminal charges against him. The case had dragged and Bill was looking forward to clearing his name.

We all thought that going to court and being found innocent would bring Bill and Christopher together again.

During lunch break at criminal court. Bill got to see–for the first time–how his ex-wife had been able to get a judge to allow her to take Christopher out of jurisdiction. He now had tangible proof of the lies and was convinced he’d be able to have the family court order overturned. After lunch, when the criminal judge threw the case out of court, Bill and his family were elated.

Justice at last!

Inspired by what the judge and his lawyer had said about his chances of getting Christopher back, he wasted no time on celebration and was at the family courthouse the very next working day. The long road back to Christopher kept him in a hurry.

As it turned out, family court officials in Barry would do nothing to right the wrong. Starting over again would take Bill all the way back to square one, with an appeal process that could take six months or longer to get back before a judge.

Even with lies on paper concerning a lawyer, a doctor and a social worker, Bill won’t find any faster route back to Ontario Family Court.

That was the day he came to the full realization that it would be a long time before he ever saw Christopher again.

Bill was inconsolable and no one knew what to say to him. He had already survived bankruptcy, the gut-wrenching worry about having his innocent father questioned by police in the continuing drama calculated by the other side. How could friends ever protect him against a heart full of hatred?

This is a story whose beginnings go back to a wife with problems stemming from the day her parents decided to move away from B.C. to Ontario, when she was still in her teens. She has never forgiven them for that.

In fact, a decade later, it was the main unresolved problem in a rocky relationship and marriage. Bill supported his wife emotionally, and even helped her through the process of facing her parents on the issue during their trip to Ontario just before the breakup.

But sometimes in complicated emotional trauma, we turn on the people who know, just because they know.

From the time Christopher was learning to talk, the disturbing signs were there that his mother was doing everything possible to turn him against his father. When the toddler was only two and a half, he once asked in a private moment, why Bill "hated" him and his mother.

During lonely days and nights without Christopher, Bill can’t stop thinking what his son is being told about his abrupt absence.

Even with the passage of time and clear victory, the ex-wife’s parents refuse to allow Christopher to come to the telephone for his aunt or other family members.

The ex has won her mission of vengeance.

But control can not last forever and there are no guarantees in life.

The last chapter in this story hasn’t been written, because there is one thing for certain. When he is older, the day will come when Christopher will come looking for his father.

Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com


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