Merry Christmas Parker & Truman

I really do not know how to begin. The subject is complicated for no reason so this is going to be a short note. I want to send you gifts but I do not know if y'all will receive them. I bought y'all something this year that will be around for as long as it takes us to reunite.

I have not forgotten about y'all or given up on y'all. There are forces that are trying to keep us apart. I want you to know I have had struggles in my life and regaining visitation with y'all has been and is the hardest. Once we reacquaint, you will know me and you will know I DO NOT GIVE UP! Do not let anyone tell you otherwise! I have a list longer that will support my tenacity and desire to be with y'all again than any short list that tells y'all otherwise. I do not want to criticize my opposition for it serves no purpose.

I am going to post a letter from last year when I came to your house and had the Harris County Constables actually take my gifts inside, I do not know if you received them or not so this year I bought a lifetime gift. The gift is a stellar gift and y'all will understand once we reacquaint.

I am attaching a letter that I hope explains why I choose this method.

Your Father,
Forever & Always,

Love,
Dad

Building New Beginnings

Parker & Truman,

I want yall to know that today I finished a 6-week course called "Building New Beginnings" and the is what we are going to do, build a new beginning. There is not and never has been a day that yall were not in my mind, hearts and prayers.

I know it has been a long time, but we will meet again. I have beenfighting to find a way to get to see you see 2004 and I believe I have found the way. It is going to be long and hard but I will suceed in getting yall back into my life. We will be together and I can not wait to see what big kids yall have grown into.

I Love You Both,
Forever & Always
Dad

Well She Did It Again

I was scheduled to go to court this morning to finalize the child support issue and Erika fired her attorney so we have to get yet another continuance. This is her fourth attorney; well 5th, because she had her sister find an attorney to send me a letter threatening me and I responded "Sue me! I will finally get my day in court and prove that she is in violation of her own fucked decree. Well, needless to say he backed off for two reasons; she didn't have the money to pay an attorney in Austin to represent her in Houston and because she would have lost and I would have visitation with my boys again.

The other crazy thing about this child support issue is that I am on disability and had ZERO money for 2 1/2 years. I was court ordered to pay $175 each month (for both). Now, my disability benefits pay my boys $233 each ($466 total) yet the two Texas appellate courts, the 1st & the 14th, have differing opinions on whether or not to credit the disability payments. The Office of the Attorney General states that I am in arrears $11,000 and the Department of Social Security asserts my boys have collected more than $18,000. In my opinion the OAG and the DRO (Domestic Relations Office) would rather me stand on the corner and sell crack to pay my court ordered $175 as oppose to me spending my time healing myself and letting my boys collect almost $500 per month.

All this has been going on since 2006 and I haven't even seen my boys since 2004.

A Family Portrait by Parker

A Lesson to Those Getting a Divorce

My ex was a director of a preschool and our son's classmate was an attorney for Bracewell & Patterson. Bridget O'Otoole Purdie ( a real estate counselor) told us she would draw the papers up for us, my ex and I were trying to have an amicable divorce. This is the letter Bridget Purdie sent me informing me what a Waiver meant.

Feb 2003 Happy B-day from Parker

This is one of the few mementos I have left from my boys and they are the most treasured. I post them here so They can not be stolen like all the others.

Children's Bill of Rights

By Rob V. Robertson, Attorney

Published: July 17, 2004

http://www.divorcenet.com/states/texas/txart32

Marriage is a contract between adults, and when it ends, the matter is between the adults also. Yet no parental action has a greater impact on children. Children love their parents and want to be with them. Even in times of great stress, parents have a responsibility to conduct their legal affairs in a manner that will protect their children from adult conflicts.

At a minimum, children are entitled to the following Bill of Rights:

1. Neither parent shall deny the child reasonable use of the telephone to place and receive calls with the other parent and relatives.
2. Neither parent shall speak or write derogatory remarks about the other parent to the child, or engage in abusive, coarse or foul language, which can be overheard by the child whether or not the language involves the other parent.
3. Neither parent shall permit the children to overhear arguments, negotiations or other substantive discussions about legal or business dealings between the parents.
4. Neither parent shall physically or psychologically attempt to pressure, attempt to influence, pressure or influence the children concerning the personal opinion or position of the child concerning legal proceedings between the parents.
5. Each parent will permit the child to display photographs of the other parent or both parents in the child's room.
6. Neither parent shall communicate moral judgments about the other parent to the child concerning the other parent's choice of values, lifestyle, choice of friends, successes or failures in life (career, financial, relational) or residential choice.
7. The parents will acknowledge to the child that the child has two homes although the child may spend more time at one home than the other.
8. The parents shall cooperate to the greatest extent practicable in sharing time with the child.
9. Each parent will permit the child to retain, and allow easy access to, correspondence, greeting cards, and other written materials received from the other parent.
10. Each parent will respect the physical integrity of items possessed by the child which depict the other parent or remind the child of the other parent.
11. Neither parent will trivialize, or deny the existence of the other parent to the child.
12. Neither parent will interrogate the child about the other parent nor will either parent discourage comments by the child about the other parent.
13. Neither parent will intercept, "lose", derail, "forget" or otherwise interfere with communications to the child from the other parent.
14. Neither parent will refuse to acknowledge that the child can have or should have good experiences with the other parent.
15. Neither parent will directly or indirectly attack or criticize to the child the extended family of the other parent, the other parent's career, the living and travel arrangements of the other parent, or lawful activities of the other parent or associates of the other parent.
16. Neither parent will use the child as a "middleman" by using the child to communicate with the other parent on inappropriate topics.
17. Neither parent will undermine the other parent in the eyes of the child by engaging in the "circumstantial syndrome" which is done by manipulating, changing, or rearranging facts.
18. Neither parent will create for, or exaggerate to, the child differences between the parents.
19. Neither parent will say and do things with an eye to gaining the child as an "ally" against the other parent.
20. Neither parent will encourage or instruct the child to be disobedient to the other parent, stepparents, or relatives.
21. Neither parent will reward the child to act negatively toward the other parent.
22. Neither parent will try to make the child believe he or she loves the child more than the other parent, by, for example, saying that he or she loves the child more than the other parent or over-informing the child on adult topics or overindulging the child.
23. Neither parent will discuss child support issues with the child.
24. Neither parent will engage in judgmental, opinionated or negative commentary, physical inspections or interrogations once the child arrives from his/her other home.
25. Neither parent will "rewrite" or "re-script" facts which the child originally knows to be different.
26. Neither parent will punish the child physically or threaten such punishment in order to influence the child to adopt the parent's negative program, if any, against the other parent.
27. Neither parent will permit the child to be transported by a person who is intoxicated due to consumption of alcohol or illegal drugs.
28. Neither parent will smoke tobacco materials inside structures or vehicles occupied at the time by the child.
29. Each parent will permit the child to carry gifts, toys, clothing, and other items belonging to the child with him or her to the residence of the other parent or relatives or permit the child to take gifts, toys, clothing, and other items belonging to the child back to the residence of the other parent, as the case may be, to facilitate the child having with him or her objects, important to the child. The gifts, toys, clothing and other items belonging to the child referred to here mean items which are reasonable transportable and does not include pets (which the parents agree are impractical to move about).

Last modified: January 18, 2005 - 08:01 AM

I Eargerly Await to Receive More Gifts LIke This

A Letter to Parker & Truman

What a long strange trip it has been. I am beginning to see the glimmerings of the other side, a new sun establishing itself in the horizon.

I was married to my boys mother for almost 7 years, dated for 5 years previuosly and best friends for a year before that. I never thought she would run and hide my boys from me.

This is the sunrise peaking, I have finally found Parker and Truman and I am beginning the arduous journey of re-establishing my denied father-son relationship.

The last time I knew where they were was August 18th, 2004. This day was the day it all crumbled like the Berlin Wall. The difference was the Wall coming down was the opening up to a free world and the end of a struggle. The crumbling in this circumstance was the end of freedom and the beginning of a struggle.

I love you Parker & Truman. I always have and always will. I want yall to know that once we reunite, nothing will be able to separate us again. I will never turn yall away as your mother and my parents did to me. You will always have a place with me. I made a commitment to yall and I will never renege on that commitment. I apologize from the bottom of my heart that things turned out as they have and when yall find this, I hope you will ask your mother what she was thinking.

Parker, you received MY name as your middle name, you are a part of me just as my name is a part of me. Truman, you middle name is from MY fiction hero from "The Fountainhead" by Ayn Rand, your place was burned in my heart even before you were born.

I want yall to know I was there just as I will be again. I cut both of your umbilical cords. Parker,your birth was more complicated and that was all I could do but I was in the room the entire time eagerly awaiting your arrival. Truman, I was the first to hold you and went with you when you needed your first check-up on your birthday. Parker, I taught your mother how to change your diapers; a fact I am sure she will deny but seeing as how she denied yall your father I am not sure what her word is worth.

My point I what to make is that I LOVE YOU BOYS! We will be together again! I wanted to write this so when yall are old enough to search for the truth it will be here. I didn't tell about this because I don't want to convince you of anything negative about your mother, no matter how wrong she was. I am going to focus on us and how we can be together as father and sons. But I believe in the truth, like my email (vereverum) Vere Verum is Latin for 'the actual truth'. I will always provide you with the truth but sometimes you will have to be willing and able to seek it out for yourselves.

Forever & Always

Love,

Your Father