Is forgiveness ever possible?

Twenty five years ago this month my ex-husband kidnapped our 6-week old daughter and drove from Reno to Tulsa, Oklahoma with her. The month that he had her away from me was the most (get that, MOST) horrible time I have ever had in my life. I was 19 at the time and fresh out of high school, newly married, got pregnant on our honeymoon. Short engagement situation, met in June, married in October, and a new baby the following June.

Oh - it wasn't all cake and flowers with him. My ex husband had some serious issues from his homelife. The oldest of nine kids in a 7th day Adventist family, he had it rough. We never talked about his upbringing. The only time I was in the company of his father, the man never spoke to me. His mother was kind and even came to our house one time when Amanda was about 2 weeks old. She watched Amanda while I took a shower and visited till it was time to go back to her husbands office. My ex-husband devised a plan with a woman he worked with to go to HER family in Tulsa, where he would have a place to stay and people to watch our child while he got a job. He told her I was neglecting the baby and using drugs and messing around with some man in the neighborhood (never mind the fact that I just had a baby).

First, the law wouldn't help me because we were married and he had every legal right to take his child anywhere he wanted to take her. He didn't need to even tell me where they were - legally. Thanks to the support from my parents, I hired a private detective, I even consulted a psychic (and BOY was that a waste of money). Nothing worked, nothing helped. I had the paper run a story and offer a reward leading to the location of him and my daughter. Basically for that month, I sat in a valium induced fog waiting and waiting and waiting.

Finally one night the phone rang at my parent's house - it was HIM, saying that he wanted me to fly to Tulsa and meet him, say goodbye to my family and never plan to return to Reno. So, I told him I would, and he would call me the next day to find out when my flight would be in Tulsa and he and the baby would meet me at the airport. Well, I had already obtained a custody order and begun divorce proceedings from him. So the PLAN was to have a friend of the family go with me to Tulsa, serve my ex-husband in the airport with the custody papers, take the baby and get outta Tulsa, heading home. Well - Mr. Crafty came alone to the airport, ruining all our well-laid plans. Funny how that happens. So, I had to ride with him to the house he was staying at and there was my baby girl. Clean, happy and fine - thanks to Jesus for that.

After some time and tears the truth started to come out. The phone rang and it was his friend from Reno - the family he was staying with in Tulsa was HER mother and sister. The woman said that my ex had been fired from his job there - and her mother was very upset to find me there, and just what the HELL was going on now? Were they expected to take care of ME too?? Was I moving into the house too? No, actually, I wasn't there to stay, I was there to get my child and get back to Reno. I dropped the papers on the bed, got the baby and some of her things together, and the sister took me back to the airport. I flew us to Wichita that night and back to Reno the next day.

Not long later, my ex husband returned to Reno and got a job. I set up for child support to be taken out of his check and sent to me through the Social Services department. After he vanished from Reno and the child support payments stopped, I had him tracked to Arizona. I filed papers to have his parental rights terminated - which very much upset my parents because they thought my ex should pay child support either voluntarily or not. My thinking was that he could come around and request visitation, eventually be granted solo visitation rights, and perhaps steal Amanda again, this time making damn sure I never heard from him or saw my child again. So - thinking I was doing the right thing, I let him off the old hook.

I've always kept track of his location (thanks to some good friends of mine in the tracking business). He's a source of concern that if he knew where we were he could somehow do us harm. I wrote to him after Amanda was 18 to tell him that she was interested in talking to him and maybe having some sort of relationship, this is true, however, Amanda changed her mind after I received a phone call from his current wife. The woman had a bag-full of excuses for why my ex-husband couldn't call his daughter for himself, he was just so scared of the entire situation, but now if Amanda wanted to call him - well here's his phone number and address, she was welcome to write him anytime. Well, daughter declined, she said if after all this time he didn't care to call her himself or try to contact her at all, then she wasn't interested. I said fine.

Now recently I ran a check and got a new address, I sent him a note letting him know that Amanda has a baby and a husband and that we're all fine up here in the northern territory, asking him once and for all to explain to me what happened back then in 1982. My thought process is always to know that the address I have for him is current, so if he suddenly moves to Washington state, I'll know exactly where he is. Well, anway, the current wife write this 5 page letter to me, first telling me how happy HE is to be a grandfather!!!, Telling me all the excuses why poor ex husband can't pick up a phone and call someone - he's still living in the past where he might be punished by his daddy if he picks up the phone. Well, ex husband is now 54 years old, and his daddy is deceased. Ok - the rest of the letter is a lavish excuse pile of how he tried to find us in Reno one time and how he's not close to his family, though he still considers me and our child to be family and would I please send current pictures of his daughter and granddaughter for their "family" picture wall. She said she never discussed the time that he and I were together with him, because it makes him so sad to talk about it all. He feels so guilty about not having a relationship with Amanda, blah blah.

Well boo-freaking-hoo honey. I slammed a letter back, first asking her to NOT write me and not call me again unless it is to tell me he's dead so I know we are finally safe from him. Told her he is NOT a grandfather, having never been a father. I also asked her to ask him all the questions I need answers to: why he took Amanda, why he lied to those people and got them to help him with a home and a job in Tulsa, who gave him money to help get away from Reno, did he really try to kill the two of us by hitting a deer the night we left Reno on our honeymoon? (I was snoozing in the back seat of the car and distinctly remember the car accelerating, followed very closely by a slam and screaching brakes, and then I was on the floor of the back seat- when I sat up there was a dead dear in the road and the front of our car was smashed in). I wanted to know what happened in a few other instances along the way.

I wanted him to know that what he did ruined my ability to ever ever trust a man again. I got "fixed" after this happened to assure I would never have that kind of relationship with another man again. I never married again, and have had a lot of serious issues with Amanda because of the separation we went through at such a pivitol time in a mother/child relationship. I told her to tell him that if he'll honestly answer all my questions, I might be able to find a way to forgive him. And of course, I suggested to him that if he feels so guilty about it all, he could send his daughter $43,000 in back support he owes his daughter.

But is it ever going to happen that I can forgive what he did? Should I even? I can never forget or lighten up my vigilance against him. There is so much water under the 25-year old bridge, but I can still see him in my mind, I can still bring back all the raw emotion of the night I got home from work to find the house torn apart, him and the baby gone, all her things missing, and the phone off the hook. The fear I went through of not knowing if she was alive or not, if he'd dropped her off at some orphanage somewhere, if there was ever going to be a time that I would have her in my arms again. Once she was back, there were days I would look at her and not know her anymore. She even pushed away from me, a stranger to her. She and my mother Geri had a warm and sweet relationship, much closer than Amanda and I had. All our life together has been hindered by what happened when she was a baby. We're more like sisters than mother/daughter, and it all goes back to this time, this man, this action.

The last few days have been pretty anxious for me, reliving all this again. Chris of course doesn't understand anything about it. He knows what happened, but he can't understand why I would keep track and keep in touch with my ex husband. Sigh....what a quandary.