One happy ending and two more to go
My children have always been in the very depths of my heart, to me they were the world and still are. I know some who will read this may cry, it is what I did when I first realized what I was looking at. See I've been blind with what I have been doing. I forgot that the same tools I use to track a sexual offender whos violating down, are the exact tools I had at my disposal. Ive gone 20 some years with out seeing three of my childrens faces. And Ive gone through alot of sleepless nights with my mind always racing back to that day. Always trying to reach back into the past and always hoping for something I could have done different April 14,1984. But there's nothing that could have been changed. I did everything the way I was supposed to do as a mother and a young teen-age wife that day. And maybes with what if Is, well they don't count because the fact of the matter is, that day can never be reversed it happened. What also happened was reality awoke in me. Id been married off because I was and did to my family bring shame by being a unwed yep mother. When your 14 and your lifes been changed without your permission, you learn a few things quickly. Like how to ignore the comments, and how to cry silently because to cry any other way would one get you slapped upside the head or two you would be tantalised by your siblings as being a big cry baby and lier. By no means was I a perfect child, but there was a big why for that as well, that never got asked by any one either. Which means I was dirt poor and looked down upon for it by my community that now finds me of great interest. And I acted out alot especially if it had to do with ones violating me in ways I did not at all like. So when this now 40 year old woman was 14 I spent sometime in Scioto Village. It would be where I carried out my pregnancy, thanks to Judge Pierce. He deemed me as unruly and if he had gone through what I lived through, well you can bet he to would have been unruly. It was called fighting for my dignity and my way of survival. I can still remember the day I gave birth to my baby. The leaves had started to change. Id eaten breakfast at the cafeteria we walked to every morning. My walking partner was due that day and I was supposed to go another week, but I think God had a plan different from doctors. I knew I would be facing the den of lions soon, because you don't get to stay long after the baby was born, and I had so much ahead of time named my baby. Doctors kept saying it was a girl but I knew it was a boy. I knew my baby long before he breathed air. He loved to be read to and he disliked rock and roll. If I ate peanut butter he would keep me up all night long. He liked to lay on my left side alot and so I to became fond of sleeping on that side, something I still do to this day. I remember the pain because it was unlike any I knew and believe me I knew pain. I was transported by a female staff member. She was nervous and put me in the back seat laying down of the car they used for transportation to the hospital. She told me I was now doing the hardest thing in life to do, and asked what I intended on doing with my child. I told her I intended to keep him and love him, that he was innocent and loved me just as much as I loved him. I heard her say to me just before my next contraction, "It takes more than love for a baby missy, but you'll soon see if you keep that child." I think they took babies from young girls, but I kept my baby and it was a fight to do it. When he came it was like time stopped for a few minuets and all that moved was suspended there for some reason. And then he let the world know he had arrived. It was so sweet and heart lifting when the nurse placed him in my arms. She said do you have a name yet and I said yeah Daniel David. He got his name because of Daniel and the Lions Den. And I knew we had alot of battles ahead especially me. I had one mother who I did not want to get Daniel until my release, I had someone telling me to adopt him out, and then on top of that I could not take him back with me to Scioto Village. And I feared for him leaving me for a minuet. I made two phone calls that day one to Coshocton County Children Services Bill Godwin and then to my Uncles brother. Daniel needed protected and when I say protected I mean protected. And there is somethings I choose not to write about so I can protect him more. But on the day Daniel was born I made good choices in what needed done and to me that meant I would be a good mommy for him. Welp its how I ended up married off to a man that was as worse as the monsters I had ran from. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think anyone else was like my mother. But he showed me he was and I was soon trained to his beck and call. I did not know how to cook, clean, or shop. I knew how to tend to Daniel because Children Services provided me with someone when he first came back home to me after my release but I did not know how to deal with a husband. My first black eye was only a few short months after we married. He beat me that time because of pot pies for dinner. And if he wanted what a wife should give as he believed there was no no's. But never once in all the beatings I got did he touch Daniel. It was something I never saw coming. Out of that marriage we had three children both born early because; I believe their father who loved to use my body for his punching bag. I will never forget April 14, 1984 the screams are still in my head, and the picture of him leaned over my baby spreading butter never has faded its as if it were yesterday. I took my baby to the hospital and they life flighted him to Canton Burn Unit. This idiot scolded him while I was at Krogers getting wic and diapers, all becuase I was 15 minuets late getting back. When I left that morning the birds were chirping it was spring at last, and my children were still asleep and so I thought everything was okay that day and even when I replay that day in my mind there was no warning signal this was going to happen. I was still a child with children yet at that time, but I was growing up fast now. My other two were still asleep unharmed just the way I left them. In the days to follow Daniels burning the man who harmed him kept claiming he pulled a pan of water on himself, and that is what I keep replaying in my mind, because if it were true then I would have swooshed through water getting to the room he had my baby in. And there was no water in the carpet, not even a pan on the stove with a handle. I convinced him to stay with my old foster family, its where I knew me and the boys were safe. He did not dare touch me there, and I told them what I thought he had done and that I was scared. They agreed to let us stay, while in the midst of being at the hospital for Daniel my foster family hid my children in grandmas old dirt cellar. See someone else was now involved Children Services. Another battle and all I wanted was for my son to be okay, get rid of the problem, my husband, and be the best mom I could to my children. And had I known then they were liers I would have never hand delivered my children to them in Coshocton. But I learned this not long ago, they did not have custody of my children they claimed they did, otherwise my child would have been in foster care two weeks prior. Court papers say they had custody of my children March 30, 1984, Daniel was burnt on April 14, 1984, but when your Alberta German back then and had all Judges in your pocket including the Lawyers you could make anything happen. And she did not just for my three boys but for the last one as well. Poor and no way to fight back my children were no longer mine, no matter what I did to try and win them back. November 1985 just after the holidays I lost my children. I was never charged with any crimes nor have I ever been convicted of harming a child, as a matter of fact in the court dockets it even states my innocence and that I was no where near when my child was damaged. I gave old records to an attorney named Amy Levine and she told me what was wronged by the system must be made right, so I retained her and intend to get what was wronged righted to me. But I want to tell my story before I do that. By the time 1985 came around I was a mother to my fourth child that I obtained an illegal divorce from his father. And I had long before he was born left this man. I had contact over my fourth childs care with home visits from Children Services in Newark Ohio. In her reports Vicky Primer stated I was a well balanced mother for my son and my boyfriends son. She would give me good reviews and then turn around and give me bad ones just before court on custody of my children. There was so much truths and non truths in the case it kept you spinning. Like my last child was referred to as baby boy Wilson born July 1985, and that I called them and did things I could not have done while in an emergency surgery, my Aunt claimed I was high that day and on some occasions refused to bring me to visits for my children because of it. Mind you Ive never been convicted of drugs nor charged for anything like it. Back to that illegal divorce though, I feel it important to state Mark Gardner told me to lie to the Magestrate hearing the case. He said Virgina Wiese had it covered and I should stand close to the bench so he would not see I was ready to drop like a melon, and in the situation I was in always being beat up by the man I wanted away from so I could get my boys back I did as told. November 1985 my world ended when my children left, and November 2006 my world just started getting brighter. Ive found one of the things that keeps me going my first born son Daniel David Valentine. He dosen't know it yet because Im scared of the what ifs, yet at the same time I know this is something I need to do before I never get to tell him the exact thing my dad told me before he passed away one week after Daniels birth," If you never remember nothing else about me remember and always know Ive loved you no matter what." And I do remember it daddy even to this day, I still feel that last hug, and it makes me cry( he died that night). I hope he'll see the works Ive done for him and the others has come out of that never undieing love Ive held for them all these years, I hope that even if I don't contact him one day he'll tell my grandchildren I made history in Coshocton and other areas of Ohio, and that even though I never knew them I still reached my arms of love around them and I protected them by protecting innocence. Well thats my story of how Daniel and me came to be. I never saw justice and I reckon I never will, but I made a difference somewhere for children who ended up like me and the ones who didn't. The other twos will be interesting when I find them to read on how we to came to be. Daniel if you happen to read this I love you and its now time to come home to me. Theres no more Lions we need to fight lifes different now for you and me. Its your face that holds my light and your brothers faces that keep me tightly holding on to a dream. Love Always, Your Mommy