The Road Home

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Can you see by your lonely light of day

Is this road really the only way

Can this road be taken, taken at all

                                                                                  — Graham Nash

When I say it's been nearly three years since I've seen Mary and Grace, what I mean is that I haven't had a relationship with them for that long. I've seen them though, here and there, around town mostly, and usually always from a distance.

Conclusion to Part 1

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    Becoming a dad was 10,000 times better than anything else I've ever done.  

                                                                                                                — Steve Jobs

Grace and Mary on the swings while Mary reads a book

A couple of years ago I was walking into a local Barnes and Noble when I noticed an elderly man standing in the entrance by himself. He was holding on to a walker and looking out the window at the parking lot. He seemed lost. I stopped and asked him if he needed any help, and he told me he was only waiting for his daughter to get the car. Soon a car pulled up in front of the store and his daughter came in and got him and they left together.

Never Got to Say Goodbye

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It was a late summer day. Goldenrod and asters were coloring the hill. The days were growing short, the birds were gathering in flocks, and there was a feeling in the air that school would be starting soon.

                                                — From Betsy-Tacy by Maud Hart Lovelace 

Grace with flowers

When you tell a child her father is evil and that she should hate him you're telling her that everything she once thought to be true about a person she loves more than anyone, was wrong, and that she was wrong. And in a short period of time, the bond she once had with her father will be severed, the effects of this will negatively affect her the rest of her life, and in the end, she'll hate herself.

Heaven Help Us

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I was trying any way I could think of to connect to my kids. I tried to find out where they were living so I could see them and talk to them. I mailed them letters hoping they would get them. I talked to their teachers and friends asking them odd questions like "Have you seen my kids lately?" or "Would you give them a message if you do see them?" I even asked my siblings to help.

Mary Calls Me from the Hospital

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Later on, during the summer of 2011, I got another call from Mary. This time she called me from a hospital where she had been taken after a car ran into her while she was riding her bike. She said she was crossing the street and didn't see the car coming and it slammed into her and sent her sailing across the pavement. Luckily she survived. It was the first I'd heard about her accident. Her mom hadn't called to tell me about it even though Mary was living with her at that time. I guess she didn't want me to know anything about Mary, even something like this.

State and County Connection – Part 2

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Mary Wouldn't Have Wanted a Social Worker in Her Life

The fact that Mary would seek out a social worker at this time in her life is extremely difficult for me to believe. Of all the people in the world, she would be the last person I would expect would want a social worker in her life, or, as in her case, back in her life. This was a time when she would have wanted anything but this — when she was trying to exert her independence and show the world she had grown up. For years the only thing Mary had wanted was to prove to others she didn't need these people in her life anymore, and she was proud of her achievements primarily because she had accomplished them without social workers. These were the people she had wanted to get away from more than anything else. 

State and County Connection – Part 1

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I think Trish Reedstrom, the Blue Earth County social work supervisor, planned to take Mary from me ever since the day I scoffed at her threat to make up child abuse charges against me if I didn't sign a form letting her place Mary in a foster home in Fergus Falls, Minnesota. Instead of giving in to her threat that day, I took Mary home, raised her by myself, and gave her the kind of life the County was never able to give her. And while Mary was busy putting together her life and living with me, Trish was putting together a plan on how she could finally take Mary away from me.

I Call Mary's Social Worker

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I call the Social Services office in early 2011 to talk to Mary's social worker.

Me: "Hi, this is Mary Brosnan's dad. I'd like to talk to Mary's social worker."

I'm put on hold.

Receptionist: "I'm going to have to put you through to the social work supervisor."

Mary Calls Me From Oregon

Journal — April 10, 2011
 

Josie called from Oregon. She was at work. We talked a bit and then she told me Mary was visiting her and was sharing her bed and it was beginning to bug her because she doesn’t clean up and she takes up most of the bed.

I said, "Really, how long has she been there?"

"Four or five days."

"How did she get out there?"

"Plane."

Connecting the Dots

Whenever a new history is written, the old histories all have to be thrown out. Robbing people of their actual history is the same as robbing them of part of themselves. It's crime!

                             — From 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami

Denial

The girls now had to accept this new way of life as the norm. They had to learn it was best (and safer) not to question what they were being told about their father. Lies could no longer be challenged and secrets had to remain hidden. They were now forced to forget what they had previously known about me and had to start living a life in denial.

PART 4: A WHOLE NEW WORLD

Josie, Mary, and Grace

Our lives had changed — both the girls' and mine — and for the first time ever we were separated from each other, living separate lives in separate homes as separate families. And now it looked like this was going to be permanent. It was as if we had never been a family and never shared a past.

I Lose My Job and I Lose Mary - August 2010

     At first it was autumn; there were red and yellow leaves for Betsy and Tacy to scuffle underfoot. Then the leaves were brown, then they were blown away; that was in the gray time named November. Then came the exciting first snow, and this was followed by more snow and more. At last the drifts rising beside the sidewalk were higher than their heads.

— From Betsy-Tacy by Maud Hart Lovelace    

Mary's Unexplained Changes - July 2010

During the winter of 2010, Mary's friend, Ann, moved in with us. Ann was a girl about Mary's age who had been sleeping in her car because her parents had kicked her out of their house. Mary asked me if she could stay with us, and I told her it was okay until she found a place of her own. We had a small apartment.

The State Threatens Me

It was getting closer and closer to the day I was going to be fired from my job. I had been a security counselor at the Regional Treatment Center in St. Peter for over five years and I knew this was coming to an end. I was being targeted by my boss. I was being fired. And just in case I didn't know this, my co-workers made sure I did. They had seen this too many times at the State Hospital to not know what it looked like. And in my case, I don't even think my boss was trying to hide it.

Mary's One-Year Anniversary! - March 17, 2010

Things were improving — six months, seven months, ten months at home with no major problems, Mary was now looking forward to making it to the one-year mark as well. For so long I thought this would never happen, and now it looked as though I may have saved this girl from what could have been a lifetime lost in institutions, or even worse, as a runaway.