Havent seen my step daughter, in about 10,

[elocs]

39. I can empathize with what you went through because I am earlier into that now.

I have known my goddaughter since she was 7 months old and her father had walked out of her life so I tried to be as much of a father to her as I could. I helped teach her how to talk and walk, how to tie her shoes and ride a bike. She called me by my first name, "Steve".
One day after church when she was maybe 3 I went to pick her up at the nursery I saw the parents of other kids picking them up. At this time she would still sometimes see her father who insisted on being called "Pa", so I asked her, "where is Pa" and she answered brightly, "oh, he's at his house". I then asked her, "where is daddy" and she looked at me puzzled and said, "you're daddy" although I had never been called that but she understood there was a difference between "pa" and "daddy" because I was always there for her. My house, every room and even the yard is a memory palace of her for me from her first Christmas, her first birthday, she is there. It's the only home where she has lived that she could return to visit. She grew up a bright and happy girl.

Then at age 16 she was struck with the tragedy of mental illness--schizoaffective disorder, which is schizophrenia and bipolar and many institutionalizations and hospitalizations here in Wisconsin in many different places. Currently she is only 40 miles from me at a mental health center where she has been 4 times before. Only now she has a state appointed guardian and her mother, the person who hates me the most in all the world has the ear of the guardian who has ruled that my goddaughter shall not have any contact with me. So I have not seen her in 2 years now when previous when she was at this place 40 miles away I would drive to see her every weekend when we had a 4 hour pass and we could go out to where we wanted to go and I always had her back on time, telling her to respect and obey the staff. I haven't heard from her now for 4 months and don't even know if she is alive or dead.

But I do in a sense have contact with her because every week I send her a package from Amazon and the package does not say who sent it and those that are deliver by Amazon show who signed for them so I know when she received them and I have sent her things that she knows came from me. A poor substitute from being able to see her, but I'll take what I can get.

The point of this long story is to encourage those who are experiencing something similar to hang in there because there are others who are going through what we are. What I resent is that I am an old man now and every week I am kept from my goddaughter is another opportunity robbed from me of seeing her again that is lost forever. (When you get old you experience a heightened sense awareness of the sands of time falling from you that are lost forever.)