Tom and Rita’s Story

I have written before about the evils of parental kidnapping, and how it is used as a weapon against parents who have won joint or full custody of their children. The gloomy procession of heart-breaking stories is never-ending: parents who have their lives destroyed because one day their children just disappeared, taken away in an act of vengeance and hate; children taken from their homes, taken to other states, other countries even, many times with their names and identities changed, children who lost one of their parents forever, unnatural orphans of living parents.

Because most of these stories have a sad ending, finding one with a happy conclusion is an uplifting experience. Recently I found one of those stories (Cabbie Hailed for Donating Kidney).

Tom Chappell, a Phoenix, Arizona cab driver, had to drive for the same always bad-humored client for a period of two months. Every time this client, named Rita, called the agency for a taxi, it was Tom who was dispatched. But when he realized that he was always driving Rita to a medical office to receive dialysis, he understood that her constant bad humor was the result of a severe kidney condition and the therapy she had to undertake in order to survive.

When he learned that Rita needed a kidney transplant, and that none of her friends or family was a suitable donor, Tom offered himself as a donor. Although Rita believed that Tom probably would not be a match, the required tests were run, and when the results came back, as Tom quotes, the doctors told them that “…if it was any closer we’d be siblings”.

Two important things resulted from this experience. First, that the surgery is planned for later this year and Rita will have the kidney that she so desperately needs. Second and most important, through the tests that were done for the transplant they discovered that the closeness between Tom and Rita was not accidental: they are father and daughter. Thirty years ago, after an ugly divorce, Tom’s ex wife took their daughter and disappeared. Now, thirty years after, and thanks to Tom’s act of generosity, father and daughter found each other precisely in a moment when, in Tom’s words, part of the reason he offered Rita his kidney in the first place is because he figured he did not have a whole lot more to live for anyway. But as he told Rita, “This has not just given you a new life. It’s given me another life.”

Never give up. Never lose hope.

The Poisoned Well

These days, life has reminded me, in a violent way as it always does to me, that struggles like mine never end, that every overcome test is nothing more that the preparation for a bigger test, that every battle won is nothing more that the preamble for a greater battle, more brutal, bloodier.

Life is a hard and unending training.

I say this, because as many that have been or are now in my situation have already discovered, solving in court the problem of the custody of our children is not the end of the war, but the beginning of an incessant sequence of big and small skirmishes, which only purpose is to sabotage the initial victory, to prove that joint custody does not work by making sure that it will not work (and so think the evil ones: if we suspect that our prophecy will not be fulfilled, we will force its fulfillment).

I say this, because in the same fashion of the wars of antiquity, on which and army poisoned the water that would be drunk by the other one, so many people, when they lose the sole custody of their children and see themselves forced to share it with their ex-spouse, from that moment on they commit themselves to provoke, to defy, to make the other parent’s life as miserable as possible.

I say this, because we cannot give up.

Always Dad, by Paul Mandelstein

The book Always Dad: Being a Great Father During & After Divorce, by Paul Mandelstein, is a very useful book for divorced fathers. Finalist for The Publishers Marketing Associations Benjamin Franklin Award, this book aspires to be a guide for those fathers who want to remain being fathers during and after divorce.

Mandelstein, a divorced father of three, founded in 1999 the nonprofit organization Father Resource Network (www.father.com), where he serves as chairman and executive director. This network helps divorced fathers, facilitating workshops and lectures focused on fatherhood in the 21st century.

In his book Always Dad, Mandelstein distills his years of experience working with divorced fathers into down-to-earth ideas and strategies to guide fathers to continue playing a crucial role in their children's lives.

Following is a summary of the chapters of the book:

Introduction - Lemons into Lemonade: Divorce as a chance for growth as a persona and as a father.

Chapter One - Breaking Up Is Hard to Do: On keeping healthy bonds with our children after divorce.

Chapter Two - Creating Your New Home: On how to make a new home and how to make room in it for your kids.

Chapter Three - Daily Life as a Single Dad: A typical day in the life of a single dad.

Chapter Four - The Non-custodial Dance: Establishing the grounds for raising children in two different homes. Earning the trust of your children in the new situation.

Chapter Five - Ex-Communications: 10 Ways to Make Talking to Your Ex Easier: Advice on how to communicate with your ex.

Chapter Six - Settling Up: Legal and Custody Issues.

Chapter Seven - Let's Get Real About the Kids: On becoming the parent you want to be for your kids.

Chapter Eight - Keeping Yourself Together: On recognizing and managing stress and depression.

Chapter Nine - Birthdays and Holidays: Tips for sharing birthdays and holidays with your ex.

Chapter Ten - Kids, Friends, Dating, and Lovers: On how to start dating again, and how doing this relates to your kids and your ex.

Chapter Eleven - Taking a Chance on Love Again: On remarriage and blending the new families.