Earlier this year, I moved into a new role in my professional life.
The change has been, night and day.
The learing curve has been, steep.
The rewards look impressive and....closer.
Come March 2025 my scholarly work should be published.
...and yet, there is still a gap missing in the composite.
Signposts. Can't forget them.
By the grace of God, had someone else not been aware, my life would have ended.
...and my children would never know.
Happy birthday Chickybabe.
Your grandfather is ageing. I could tell you that the only thing he truely wants is to see you and your sister before he passes.
Your father is ageing, I coud tell you that the only thing he truely wants is to see you and your sister before he passes.
You already know this from other grandparents.
I am sorry.
Happy birthday, my child.
After the divorce, I was financially strangled, predominately caused by Child Support on top of the maritial debts, so when the daughters and I were together, we did not venture out much. I bought a computer game, Roller Coaster Tycoon, and late at night both the girls and I played that game into the wee hours.
Some of my fondest memories after the divorce was of my youngest daughter sitting on my lap as she "moused" her way around an amusement park.
Roller Coast Tycoon turned 25 years of age last month.
I reinstalled the game, adjusted some of my settings and set about playing through the game again, recalling the nights of trying to explain to my children "how to" plan an amusement park.
The game lives with the memory of Bumbly Beach and my daughters.
A first fan recently asked "how will your children know they can contact you?"
A valid question. Estrained from me for years, they have been told information without opportunity for rebuttal, or correction. My hope is that they have better judgement than their mother.
Before we were married their mother and I were walking on a beach and a couple passed us in the other direction. It was her Father whom she had not seen for years. After preliminary conversation She was compelled to find out more, to discover if the stories that She was told by her Mother were true. When She reached out to her Father, then validated the versions, it was apparent that Her Mother had lied to her about her Father, for Her entire life.
Unable to live with the truth that She had been lied to all her life - by her Mother - she cut off all future contact with her Father.
History is not here for us to like but exists to teach us. To not recognise or consider that there might have been an alternative explanation, is to doom yourself to replicate history.
I should have recognized that moment.
I did not.
Today, I have no idea where my children are, who they are, or if they are alive.
Should they find their way here, the answer is yes, your Father will have conversations with you if you reach out, for of the two of us, I am the only one who has left the door open for you to find me.
A counterpart - another father, wrote yesterday that it is 2499 days since he last saw his children. I feel sorry for the man, he has endured more than I ever did.
...and then I did the math.
This morning, Christmas day, it will be 5500 days since I last saw my children together. It was the last time I saw my youngest child, I saw my eldest child a couple of years later in circumstances where I thought that She would understand that there can be functionality after a divorce where both parents still work together for the benefit of their children.
I gave my eldest too much credit, I didn't comprehend the curse that had been placed upon her, how her grandmother had done to her mother, so her mother was now doing to her.
I looked at my own family also, how my grandparents, uncle and aunts, had done to my parents, and how my parents did with me. Turns out, the only one who was forthright with me about it, was the man at the center of it - my Father. I hadn't given my Father enough credit, and yet, I could fault him just as well. He did not tell me until I was in his position, of what would come.
2499 days have passed since Michael Brown last saw his children.
5500 days have passed since I last saw my youngest. Merry Christmas chickybabes. My Christmas wish for both of you is that I hope you are better than both your parents.
Going home.
I was once told you can never go home. You can never go back from whence you began. Early next year I will be returning to that which has haunted me since the day I left. But it is not home.
It's just the place that I report to others as home, when in fact, it's just the general area where I grew up. It has nothing of that which a home has. Any more.
Children. Parents. Christmas mornings waking with the family.
Stolen from me early in my life, I attempted to regather the pieces, but I didn't know how, I couldn't put it back together again. (A phrase borrowed from a First Fan.) I lost it a second time, and after that, I did the best I could.
I have found myself recently less at peace with what has happened and more at peace that it happened. I'm accountable for the wear and tear, and some of the breakages. But not the theft of the pieces.
It is not that I haven't written, it is that I haven't written what I have written about.
In the professional world, I recently had a move from a local position to a state position. I am still working through the nuances of working from home for the state position, whilst maintaining contact with my local position, which I am scheduled to return to after this secondment.
The battle of working for two "masters" at this time is a balance of diplomacy for both.
It has also meant that my coworkers at home are now fury four legged companions who casually report for work at the same time I do, drape themselves wherever they feel appropriate, and take a nap.
Australian Fathers Day is today, or rather was yesterday in Australia. I have not heard from my own daughters and probably never will.
And that...is something not worth blogging about.
Happy birthday Chickybabe.
When the darkness settles on the edge of town, and the invisible lamplighters go to work, I think of you.
I think of you in the dark and in the light.
My hope is that one day, you will step out of your own darkness into the light of illumination.
Happy birthday, Chickybabe.
Eighteen years ago, at about this time, I sat in the departure lounge of Qantas Airlines Brisbane, Australia, holding my youngest daughters hand, before I departed on a plane. It wasn't any plane, it was a plane that would take me to the USA. When my flight was called for boarding, I held back, holding my daughters hand, until last call. I crouched down, hugged her and kissed her.
"Daddy loves you chickybabe."
I stood, turned, and headed down the gantry tears streaming down my face.
I had no expectation at that time of the events that would follow, that would result in that being the second last occasion I saw that child.
That child is now a grown woman, living her own life, making her own decision. One of those decision is not to have any relationship with me.
I still have her email of four words "Don't contact me again."
My Father, divorced himself, was the scourge of parental alienation with untruthfulness perpetrated by my mother as to why my He wasn't in my life. Later as a teenager, I came to discovered the truth, and even later, as a divorced father myself, learnt that what goes unchallenged, becomes accepted as "the new normal".
But for some, that "new normal" is all they know. As was done to me, was done to the mother our children by her own mother. Years ago - maybe before we were married, the girls mother ran into her Father and when she later sought out to verify the stories she had been told by her mother - his ex wife, she was faced with the reality that what she heard was not accurate. Faced with the consequences, she choose to exclude her Father, unable to accept, that her mother had lied to her about why her Dad was not in her life.
In my forthcoming book, I included this, and other examples of the parental alienation I endured, for two reasons.
It's been 18 years past since I departed Australia, but I never departed my role as a Father. Someday, someone will run into my daughters and say "I read what your Dad went through."
The second reason is its been 18 years past since I left Australia. I write for the next guy. The next guy could be my ex wifes only son - the half brother to my daughters. I thought I was good enough to stop the promulgation of alienation. Here's hoping that my daughters brother does better than those in the family before him.
On the last Friday before Christmas, I shut down my computer, left the pager on the desk, turned the "out of office" on and headed through the door, making my way to the airport headed for Chesterfield Inlet.
It appears upon arrival I may be somewhat warmer than other parts of the United States.
Merry Christmas Chickybabes.
I'm sitting at Atlanta International Airport, - one of the largest and businest airports in the world. People coming and going and moving between places. While waiting for my flight, the gentlemen who was sitting beside me gets up. He has four or five seats covered with luggage, childrens toys, and a stroller. He wants to go to the restroom and asks me to look after his lugagge.
"I'm not supervising your luggage."
The guys walks off. Where is the rest of his family? Who has the children associated with the stroller and toys? I'm not your minder of luggage. And shame on you for asking.
The airport overhead speaker annouces "Keep control of you baggage. Do not allow anyone to have control of your baggage."
After the divorce when I was out with my daughters, then a single Father, I had to rely on myself to do all the tasks associated with raising children. When we travelled I made sure we travlled as a group and accompanied the girls everywhere - except into ladies restrooms.
Was it difficult? Absolutely. There were times when I wished I had female companion to assist the girls, but, I didn't...and I had to look after our own luggage.
I would not have wanted anyone to supervise my luggage.
See Something, Say Something.
I called the Department of Homeland Security to supervise their luggage.
People are stupid.
Happy birthday Chickybabe.
Each year on this day I think back to the first occurrence of this day. What occurred, what had to happen, who brought you into the world.
As you grew, I use to think that the worst thing that could occur was that your life would be taken by accident - vehicular, illness, abduction - I never though that the worst thing that could occur would be that your life would be taken by alienation.
I am sorry.
You have now been out of my life longer than you were in it, and your grandfather - Poppy, has lost the grandchildren he tried to recapture life with - after his children were taken by alienation.
And you will probably do the same, should you choose to have children.
Happy birthday, my child.
Welcome, my child.
A little girl.
...and once again, the Bourgeois family has provided the Madden family with another lost link.
The following is a reproduction of an article that I wrote for the Fathers Rights Movement California State Chapter on 6 Feb 2021.
My parents were divorced when I was young. As a teen and later as a college student, I'd occasionally visit Dad at the Army base he lived and worked at. On his desk were photographs of my brother and I but they were old photos...as toddlers, the first day of school - there was nothing recent.
I never understood why.
Come forward sixteen years and I'm divorced with two daughters. On my last day in Australia before coming to the USA, Dad took us to a fine seafood restaurant. At the end of the meal a photo was taken of the people present, including my Dad, my brother, and my daughters.
Come forward another sixteen years and and the photo pops up on my Facebook memories.
And suddenly...I understand why Dad only had old photos of my brother and I.
It was all he had.
The photograph taken at the restaurant was the last time my Father saw his granddaughters. It was the second last time I saw my daughters.
Now, it is all that I have.
It has a been...a quiet time. A Dreamtime.
For the First Fans - we have lost three in sixty days.
The Big Man was the first to go. He taught me more about parenting then my own Father did.
The next was Her Mom. She needed the dependent care but in the end, She would always been the disobedient person that She was, in need of oversight at all times, and needing saving when there was no oversight. She wanted to make Her own decisions, and that is why She has gone.
The third, I did not not know well, but Her loss punctuated the generational gap.
There is a child that will be born this year, a child that will be the first (known) grandchild to me.
...and suddenly, the stories I should have written have now become the stories that will be told to a young child. The stories that they will hear of the Big Man, Large Marge and another, will no longer be coming from the lips of those people, but will be regaled by story tellers.
The aboriginal people of Australia speak of the Dreamtime, to explain the landscape of the land, and the history of their people. And I will speak of the Dreamtime in the technological era, of the people that came before the child, and of what the child meant to those people.
I wonder if my own children will tell the Dreamtime story of their Father to their children?
Second half.
As the California "stay at home" orders continue to escalate with the returning surge of Covid-19, the desire to write is,,,diminishing. It's not that I don't have the discipline, it's more along the lines that other than medical facilities, it's been five months inside the same room. Some call it cabin fever.
I always thought that I could single handed sail long distances. Not necessarily a circumnavigation, but I thought I could do oceanic crossings, stay a while, continue on. Maybe I will have that ability one day but after five months, I'm no so sure.
Today I celebrated another lap of the solar system and head out again, without my daughters. In a conversation with my Father this evening I spoke briefly about them. He, the man who lost his own children, but regained them miraculously, was a better Father than I. I never regained mine.
Still, I had lasagna tonight as if they were here.
