Broken Families Need Better Help

It’s hard to realize how ineffective the law can be, until you or a loved one falls through a crack.

A close relative I’ll call “Grace” fell through one the size of the Grand Canyon 18 months ago, when her abusive husband stole her two kids, ages 7 and 9, and disappeared. He’d threatened to do so for years. Grace, for all her smarts and looks, had a knack for attracting mean men.

When she was 8-1/2 months pregnant with her second child, Grace and her toddler son were abandoned by Mr. Bad News in an unfamiliar metropolitan area. With no money. He hit her at times and was always playing mind games. She tried to escape once, driving all night with her kids in an old clunker from New Mexico to Idaho. She had her own apartment in Coeur d’Alene and was turning her life around when her husband wormed his way back into her heart.

She was co-dependent - until her husband stole the kids.

Actually, “stole” is the wrong word. According to the law, he didn’t do anything wrong because he was still married to Grace. He had as much right to the children as she did. After all, possession is nine-tenths of the law, right? Unfortunately, Grace didn’t have the money to hire a lawyer for a divorce or a private investigator to find her children. Game, set, match to Hubbie Dearest.

But that wasn’t all.

It took us 15 months to find Grace’s children. During that time, Grace sank into a deep depression. At times, my wife and I feared she’d kill herself. Ultimately, we discovered Mr. Bad News was hiding in Colorado and New Mexico, living with relatives or in broken-down rentals. He and the kids were staying with his grandmother when we found them.

Then, we discovered how blind justice can be.

You’d think Grace could have called the police or begun court proceedings in Idaho to get partial custody of her children. She couldn’t. The police refused to choose sides in what amounted to a custody dispute. And who can blame them? Worse, the law favored her husband because he’d established residency in the Southwest. Grace, who was struggling to meet living expenses with her minimum-wage job and help from relatives, seemed to have but two choices: Jeopardize her life by moving to her estranged husband’s town, find a job and use the few pennies extra to fight for custody. Or steal the children back.

Incredibly, several attorneys advised that Grace couldn’t do much about the situation until she had the kids in her possession. Privately, they suggested she grab them - on their way home from school. At a park. Or from their great-grandmother’s home.

I thought there had to be a better way. I also wondered how many women in the Inland Northwest and throughout the country were faced with the same situation. There should be a law that enables women - and, in some cases, men - to force estranged and former mates to return with their children for a custody hearing.

We were fortunate. Not only did we find someone who knew where the kids were, but we received help in retrieving them from a host of dedicated public servants, stretching from Idaho to the Southwest. Frustration turned to hope one day while I was having lunch with Mike Tracy, state communications director for U.S. Sen. Larry Craig’s office. Mike mentioned how his office had helped reunite a mother and her children after her estranged husband took them to Mexico.

That struck a nerve.

I told Mike about Grace. From that point, Craig’s office helped Grace obtain legal assistance and used its contacts in other states to help her.

Ultimately, to reunite Grace and the kids, we needed the aid of two U.S. Senate offices, the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, pro-bono legal assistance in Idaho, and an understanding police chief, an attorney, a social worker and a judge in a small Colorado town. Through the efforts of Craig’s office, Grace was able to visit her husband’s town and obtain court papers giving her temporary custody of her children. As Mr. Bad News watched helplessly, sheriff’s deputies picked the children up and handed them over to Grace at a nearby police station.

So much could have gone wrong. Our family thanks God it didn’t.

Today, Grace and her children are adjusting to life together. It hasn’t been easy. Their father had lied that their mother didn’t care for them. That she never wanted to see them again. Living with him, they saw and heard things youngsters their age shouldn’t. Grace’s son is a handsome, blond boy of 11 now - going on 21.

Grace has full, legal custody of the children. Typically, her now ex-husband made threats about fighting to get them back but didn’t follow through. Grace was issued her divorce decree and won her custody case by default when he didn’t show up to contest either.

No one should go through what Grace did. Her story continues on a happy note. But how many others have fallen through the same crack? Congress needs to patch it.