My beautiful 'cousin-in-law' Ines is 9yrs old.

Her mum's Danish and her dad's from Morocco, they live in Denmark. They were divorced about 3 years ago. After the divorce, dad got visitation rights of Ines and her little brother and at that time started to abuse her both physically and emotionally, hitting her, and telling her she has no rights because she's female, that she's not worth anything and that she's lower than scum. It got really bad at one point and the visitations stopped. During that time, dad got to Ines while she was walking home from school, wanting to force her in his car, and when she said she didn't want to go, he threatened her with a knife. Another time, dad and another guy waited for her after school again, and dad hit her in the stomach. He said to her it's to get back at her mum and her family of racists and whores.

Both incidents were reported to the police, but authorities claim there's no physical evidence so dad cannot legally be charged unless he had actually stabbed her or bruised her stomach. Supervised visitations were reinstalled, every fortnight, for two hours on a Saturday.

There have been 3 visitations so far, and on all three occasions, the supervisors at one point left the room, giving dad the opportunity to threaten Ines, and give her his phone #, telling her to phone him. The authorities can't guarantee 100% supervised visitation sessions. We've been trying to get mum to state her discontent with this situation, but mum's residing in extreme victim mode, thusly unable herself to take the strong actions needed to protect her little girl.

Ines (logically, and in a way, thankfully) is really angry, she is extremely violent with her mum and little brother, she hits them, tells them she's going to kill them and screams and screams at the top of her lungs for hours. She goes to a psychologist twice a week. This person helps Ines to 'give room to her anger' and mum worships the ground this person walks on. It's my (professional) opinion that this person (although fully qualified, I'm sure) is dealing with the symptoms, not the root. The psychologist's told mum that as long as dad's in Ines' life, the root cannot be addressed and I strongly, strongly disagree.

Mum's depressed and unhappy, and currently not capable of standing her own, let alone deal with this severely traumatised young girl. I've been advising mum how she can support and help Ines when she has those outbursts, explaining to her she's not misbehaving, and she has every right to be angry, because the message she's been getting from dad, that she has no rights and is lower than scum, is constantly being reinforced by the authorities. Mum lost her job 6 months ago and is exhausted.

We reported the situation (as concerned citizens) to the community of Copenhagen, hoping to wake them up and urging them to take the necessary actions to protect this beautiful little girl. We'll keep on harrassing them daily until something's being done to help her, regardless of how long they put us on hold and no matter the costs of the international phone calls.

We're contemplating to offer mum to take Ines in during the summer so she can get some R&R and I can work with her further. It would be quite a big deal because Ines lives in Denmark, but I feel she's definitely worth it and we should at least offer it, as we feel we have the means, the capacity and strength and determination to do it. If mum declines we can always try to find another solution. Some action has to be taken, and right now it seems as though we're the only ones who are actively engaged in the situation.

Please keep this wonderful, lovely, beautiful and strong young girl in your prayers... she's worth it so very much and she needs it. It's her constitutional right to be protected and to be safe, and to be heard...even though her dad and child protective services and the community authorities are constantly telling her otherwise by their actions...

Thank you so much,

Usha.

It's good this little girl has you on her side.

Kate

...for children...

-m.

Usha,

"Our minds become tight when we make'us versus them' too concrete"

Through your wisdom, compassion, patience and life experience may you be the shinning light that restores balance in the life of this child.

Allow the enemy to be your supreme teacher,

My thoughts and prayers are with all involved.

bamboo

usha, bamboo said it best so I won't say much more. I'm glad that this little girl has you in her life. Keep giving her the message that she is worthy, capable and loved; it might offset the hurtful messages her father has offered. As the poet Galway Kinnell wrote, "Sometimes it is necessary to reteach a thing it's loveliness".

Dear all,
Thank you so much for your kind words. We're still trying to get someone from the community of Copenhagen to talk to us about this, and explain to us how Ines (and her mother) can get the required help. It's quite a challenge, you'd think based on their meager availability that these people are so busy doing their jobs and helping children in distress that it's even strange that Ines is in this situation now.

A positive side-effect is that our actions caused the rest of the in-laws to be less inactive, and they're now (slowly) rising their behinds as well.

My mother-in-law (Ines' aunt) fears that by us reporting the situation, Ines' dad will find a way to make it work to his advantage and sue for full custody. She thusly wants to talk to Ines' mum herself first. We gave her until Wednesday to talk to her sister about this, and if she's unsuccessful in turning this situation around 180%, we're stepping in and will take over.

We still haven't been able to speak to a qualified person at the community, but we want to make absolutely sure that they understand it's the situation we're reporting, not the mother, and that the situation is caused mainly by these supervised visitations with dad.

We're going to stay over there for a good number of weeks in the summer. We were initially going to the UK for a few weeks (something I was really looking forward to), but I cancelled it, because Ines is our #1 priority now and I know it's the right choice. Noone else in the family seems to be willing to put certain aspects of their own life on hold for the safety and well-being of this child and I feel that a great opportunity's been given to us to define and show Who We Are, and, that in relation to the well-being of this child, we will hold on like hawks until she is safe.

quote:

Allow the enemy to be your supreme teacher,

Thank you I feel there are no enemies, in this scenario, nor in general. It's about Ines and her right to a happy childhood which she has been deprived of for long enough. All the other people around her (including us) have been given a great chance to remember from all this, and to come to terms with their own paralysing fear.

But as far as I'm concerned Ines has taught us more than enough and now it's absolutely time to make sure she's safe.

Ushie, the psychologist may well be right in that a 'safe place' (time and distance?) needs to be 'reached' before the entirety of the 'root' can be addressed...

...kinda like moving a person to fresh air, from inside a burning building...

(Same goes for her Mom!)

Wishing for the best...

Yes, I know what you mean, Klausie, I absolutely do and I fully agree. Like I said before, this psych is fully qualified and, in addition, I would never (nor have so far) interfere with her treatment unless I'm specifically asked to. It will come to a point very soon in linear time where I will be asked though... but until that day arrives (and until I receive a detailed assessment from her to further build upon) I haven't taken nor will take Ines into treatment. All I've been doing so far is intercept her outbursts, mainly because I was with her when they occured, just before she was to visit her dad and shortly after she came back.

And unfortunately, in the two years that Ines has been seeing the psych, she has not 'reached' this 'safe place'... that's part of why we were so concerned, when we saw the state that she was in. In fact, as said, I agree 100% that having such a 'safe place' is an absolute necessity, before anything else could even begin to take place...

As for her mother, you are absolutely correct about that, once again.

I am digging a hole.

My wife and I very much enjoy the child within us; we smile with the little surprises in life that are often found with their newness to a child’s eye, we laugh in anticipation of the child-like adventure, we often breathe deep the air of this world as a child would when smelling the newness of a different and fanciful fragrance. And so, a number of years ago and before we were married, we entertained ourselves with a day of adventure and child-like fantasy in a place designed for such things; we feasted on the company of each other and the surprises such a day would bring to those who themselves bring to it a child-like manner. We danced and sang and loved the moments and minutes, each bringing us a renewed embellishment of the joy of adventure of being alive in this world. We enjoyed the day with abandonment; we were like children.

We found ourselves at dinnertime that day at a restaurant on a darkened river, with the chirping of crickets and dimmed lighting. It was romantic and we, of course, asked for a table by the water, but these were all filled. The hostess guided us instead towards a corner near the back, to a small table where we could sit nearly side-by-side, a table that sat underneath a blooming wisteria tree. It became for us the perfect place to see all that was around us; the river, the lights, the trees, the wisteria. We sat there, in the magic of the minutes of the evening, sipping our tea, glancing up at the wisteria blooms, and enjoyed being.

At a table near us, just beyond the purple of the wisteria flowers, sat another couple – older than us, and from their overheard conversation appeared to have been a couple for a very long time. My future wife and I could not help but to listen to some of their words, and we were disappointed by them. This couple talked of unhappiness – not the big unhappiness that comes with tragic loss, but of the small things: the weather was too hot, the restaurant too crowded, this little thing was wrong, that little thing was wrong. Through their whole meal they complained of one thing or another, things of small significance, but exploded by them into a consuming ideology of complaining throughout their lives. My not-yet wife and I gazed out under the wisteria, occasionally hearing their complaints on life, and talked to each other of the wonders we experience in the world; we talked of the joy of seeing all that was around us that day through a child’s lens, and the wonder of it. There, under the blooming wisteria, we made a promise: to always view the world through our own child-like vision, and to love – unconditionally – all that is found around us. The wisteria became our totem for this promise.

Years have passed since that particular day, but my wife and I have always remembered that pledge, and last week we knew it was time for us to have the symbol of our promise put someplace in our yard. We bought a wisteria to finally plant next to our patio – where we sit every evening during the Summer (which in Southern California is March through October) – so that it might bring us beauty, shade, and a reminder of the promise of love. With child-like eagerness of anticipation we brought our totem home to find the right place for her.

So today I was digging a hole, building a home for the wisteria, a place where she can grow and thrive, from where she can share her beauty with us and those around us. A place from where she can plant her roots deep into the soil and spread herself upwards into the sky. We will plant her into her home and wait, and love, and eventually she will bloom. And my wife and I will gaze upon our promise.

But as I’m digging this hole, I found the ground to be rocky. Not too bad, but enough to where I needed to put in a little more effort to remove the rocks. They made me sweat more. Yet as I held each stone after pulling it from what is to be our totem’s home, I saw the value in it – these pieces of hardened Earth could be used for borders or pathways. I removed rocks and kept digging.

I reached the end of the new home for the wisteria, but there was a rock there and the wisteria could not root on a rock. I carefully chipped about the dirt around it to see if I could loosen it but it was large. Being somewhat patient, I continued to work on the boulder, but it stayed put. Eventually I became frustrated, and then as obstinate as the stone; I got a hammer and chisel and with vengeance attacked it, vowing to destroy what was in my way. I chipped a piece here and a piece there, but the stone was too large and more obstinate than I, after all, he was there first. I sweated and hammered and weakened my arms and my legs; the boulder suffered some injury but stayed put, neither moving nor destroyed. My sweat dripped into the hole, my back and my arms and my legs ached; the stone sat, unmoved in my predetermined path. I looked behind me to the wisteria, waiting to be planted. She swayed in the breeze, dancing to the music of the Earth. I grinned, then moved the hole a foot to the left.

When I read of Usha’s cousin-in-law, a sadness filled me. I showed her posting to my wife, and the sadness filled her, too. A sadness not just for Ines, but for all children abused in one way or another. I know I cannot change anyone but myself, but I can live with peace and love within myself, and perhaps this is enough to help another see that this can be within them, too. It is all I can do; I cannot move such large stones with these hands, but maybe I can move the hole over a foot.

We humans use labels to help us identify with things; sometimes we give names to objects like mountains and rivers and such; we give names to animals who live with us as they become ‘family’ – names like Rover, and Mittens, I once named a cat Fred. Sometimes we humans name certain plants, even: there is a tree in this world someone once named for my first born son, there is a tree near that one named for my sister’s first born daughter. I think today I will give a thing a name.

I have dug a hole, I have sweated into it, it was work and I was given a challenge as it was undertaken. I’ve put a beautiful reminder of a promise of seeing the world with child-like eyes into this hole; it is a purple wisteria tree. And my wife and I will give this promise, this particular totem, this wisteria that we shall look on every day, a name.

She shall be Ines.

-Mark.

Mark.

You and Cindy are my idols, my rolemodels, my inspiration and my faith in life and in love. I did not have those before I met you on these pages.

Ines is my heart. She's my family, she's my teacher and she's my strength. I did not have those before I met her.

Tree Ines is my tears, my laughter, my gratitude, my hope and my peace, which, thanks to the root in which she was planted, will be vast, immense and exceptional throughout eternity.

t h a n k - y o u for being in this world.

Mark, Ush and Ines.

“In A Big Country” – Big Country

so take that look off of your face, it doesn't fit you
because it's happened doesn't mean you've been discarded
pull up your head off the floor—come up screaming
cry out for everything you ever might have wanted
I thought that pain and truth were things that really mattered
but you can't stay here with every single hope you had shattered

I'm not expecting to grow flowers in a desert
but I can live and breathe and see the sun in wintertime

in a big country dreams stay with you
like a lover's voice fires the mountainside
stay alive
[emphasis added]

Tree Ines

And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, "Speak to us of Children."

And he said:

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.


From: The Prophet, 'On Children' ~ Khalil Gibran
*my emphasis

'Let there be light and there was light'.

God and AC/DC

Thank you for yours.

Thanks Mark,

You wrote some words that I needed to hear right now.

claire

Why.

It so seems that the supervised visitations, the countless outbursts and rages, the nightmares and the hundreds of psych sessions regarding dealing with physical and emotional violence, resulted in the authorities deciding that it's in the child's best interest to stay connected to her father, and that she is to visit him (without supervision) at his home regularly, starting after the summer.

Why.

It so seems that I'll work with her during the summer, but it seems so pointless to work with a child only to send her back to a huge monster in her life, coming in the shape of a father.

Why.

It so seems that both her and my reaction to this outcome was exactly the same.

Why.

It so seems that when faced with injustice, especially against children, we tend to think "Why? Why is this happening, what's the point?" We're always given an answer right away, yet, we may not always recognise that answer.

I pray that I will be able to find the strength within myself to recognise the answers that I've been given by G-d, coming to me in the shape of the authorities who took it upon themselves to rule over this child's life.

So I can help us both understand

why...

Definitly will be praying - it is sad when authorities decide or think they know whether there is abuse after such a short period of time.

Thank you dear Debra.

Update: Ines' mother is now starting to take action. She seems to have snapped out of her passive mode and is finally recognising how she can make all the difference in all this.

Probably the fact that her lawyer is on a holiday, during a time where her guidance was needed most contributed slightly... In a way it's such a gift, because apparently, Ines' mother needs this kind of a challenge to understand on a mental, emotional, physical and spiritual level that it really *is* up to her...

Ines wrote a very brave letter to the court saying that she doesn't want to see her father anymore. But her little brother said that he does want to see him, but not without Ines.

I've been advising them, saying that Ines' decision should be honoured, and she should not have to deal with added guilt about her brother. She's been getting more than enough messages that she's not important and has no voice. It took a great deal out of her to write that letter.

And her brother's decision about seeing his dad or not should not have to depend on her, and he should be made aware of this in whatever way he's able to grasp this (he is 7).

What way that should be, I haven't figured out yet...

...but for now I'm praying that the court will accept Ines' letter and finally start listening to her beautiful and strong voice...

Please pray for reconciliation of the civil marriage of my son and his wife whose marriage was based only on a contract and a promise.

Pray that they would receive wise spiritual counseling and that both would mutually enter into an irrevocable indissoluble Sacrament of Marriage inorder to receive the graces inferred by its sacramental nature. Thank you!

Let's all join together in prayer for an immediate cease-fire and resolution in the Middle East conflict.

In the name of God may all those responsible for this spiral of violence immediately put down their weapons and seek reconciliation.

I'll join you on that note, GG... but not limiting my prayer to any one conflict, rather, that the immediate cease-fire come to all wars on this small blue-green planet of ours... and that those 'responsible' be brought to justice, even as the warriors put down their arms.

Amen.

Finally, it was officially decided that Ines does not have to visit her father anymore.

When she heard the news, she asked her mother to phone us to tell us. At the end of the conversation, she wanted to talk to me herself.

She didn't say much, but her words, addressed to both of us, still resonate in my head.

..."Thank you..."

Cool, very good!