A FATHER’S LOVE

Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him.
Children born to a young man are like sharp arrows in a warrior’s hand
Psalm 127: 3 & 4

"HOPE MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE"

The story apparently has been in the news, but I only took notice the week leading up to Christmas and was subsequently totally engrossed by the full story that NBC carried on Dateline on Friday. This story was about 2 1/2 hours long and so I hope I will be able to condense it to fit on my blog, in a way that captures the real essence of it.

This young man, a model who was pursuing a modeling career in Paris (I think), met this young woman from Brazil, who was currently studying in Paris as well. They fell in love, went back to the States, got married and later had a son. Their marriage was described by friends as perfect until one day she left for a two weeks’ vacation to Brazil with their son. Upon reaching Brazil, she later telephoned her husband telling him that she would not be returning to the United States, because she does not like living there.

Needless to say, this young man was totally devastated as he loved his son dearly and they had had a very close relationship. Sadly, upon numerous visits to Brazil and requests from his lawyers in the States to return the child, the mother did not return the child. She later met someone else and received a Brazilian divorce so that she could remarry. This new husband, being from a family of lawyers (and I guess this is why she was able to get a Brazilian divorce from her American husband, as this should be illegal as she was married in the United States) then decided to file for full custody of the child.

Of course by this time this child’s father was devastated, as he saw all hopes of getting is son back fade away. Luckily for him, the American Government saw his story on a television morning program and decided to get involved. By this time the son was about four and the father had missed all his milestones. The mother in the beginning had allowed him to talk to his son, but this stopped after a while.

After the American Government got involved, the fight was still far from over and every time that he thought this would be it, he would be able to bring his son home, something else came up, as the child’s Brazilian family had come up with something else to either stop the process or delay it. Luckily during this all, he got the chance to visit his son and spend some time with him, but this was sadly under the watchful eyes of the Brazilian children’s authorities, which by now were involved in this struggle.

This father refused to give up even when situations dictated that he probably should. He remained focus and on Christmas Eve last year, after a long tough battle, he was able to fly back to the States with his son. This was indeed a Christmas miracle. This journey brought tears to my eyes as there were so much emotions involved, so much so, that even the production crew who did the story was in tears. There were even images of the little boy’s bedroom that was frozen in time as the father wanted it no other way. This was truly touching.

This was a refreshing story to have heard, to say the least, in the midst of a time when fathers are playing less and less roles in the raising of their children and in a time when children are being victimized at the hands of their parents.

My last post was about this and I was happy I saw this story, as it made me feel better about what I had written in my last post. Thank God, all is not lost, as there are still parents out there who will do anything for their precious little ones.

I applaud the efforts of this dear father, whose love for his son is a fine example of what all father’s love should be. I now wish him all the best as he now move towards reestablishing a relationship with his son, that sadly he had lost in all of this.

I must say that I do mention a lot of these stories on my blog and this, as you can well imagine is because, as a victim of infertility, children do mean a lot to me as I cannot in no way picture my myself victimizing my child, or have him taken away from me.

My hope is that this story and others I have written about have touched you also and until next time, keep clinging to hope.