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Sunday, August 11, 2013.  As it is with all stories about families it is impossible to know where the story actually begins.  This is a second-hand story so my part in telling it began nine days ago when I was first introduced to this drama.  Today I returned to our local laundromat cafe to hear from a gentleman I will call John what happened next.

The central heroine of this story is a child who was born October 1980.  When she was a little girl she lived with her mother and her young father, but when she was 2 1/2 her parents separated.  She was taken to a town where she was still cared for by her paternal grandmother.  Her father moved nearby so he could be an active part of his dearly loved little girl’s life.

The week before she was to begin kindergarten she was supposed to be taken to her father’s house for the agreed upon switch in custody arrangements.  The girl never appeared.  In fact she disappeared and stayed that way until two weeks ago.

Two weeks ago this girl was found on Facebook by her cousin.  Last Tuesday her father, her father’s son (ten years younger than his sister and THRILLED to meet her!) and his girlfriend and the girl’s 84-year-old grandmother drove a few hundred miles to see her.  Married for ten years with two sons ages 2 and 4, this girl was severely abused by her mother who married another man and changed her firstborn’s name so that nobody on her father’s side of the family could find her.  And until now – they didn’t.

What a sweet reunion!  Buried memories came surging forward for everyone involved.  A testimony to how much a very young child can “imprint” love, as the father calls it, detailed scenes and activities are appearing as if the passing 30+ years never happened.

The mother who stole her daughter from her father and her grandmother took a long dark, dark road.  She and her entire family has deliberately lied to the father’s family all of these years claiming that they had no idea where this girl was.  The mother had other children with her new husband and treated them entirely differently than she did this girl – who she severely abused out of resentment and hatred for her daughter’s father. 

The up-side is that this girl (woman now) had the umph and the smarts to disown her wicked mother ten years ago, as I mentioned in a previous post.  This is a miracle to me!

Now the coast is entirely clear for the reunification of this family who joyously and with much love met one another again last week after all these many years.  I am so happy for them!  This is probably the happiest turn-of-a-life story I have ever had the blessing to hear about.  It could not have happened to nicer people!

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This is my 1,500th post!

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