The closest we came was when Peter’s sister said to me at Dash’s funeral, “I’m so sorry.” Sandra Scarth was the director of the Children’s Services branch of the Ministry of Community and Social Services in Ontario when Peter got interim custody of Dash in 1989. At that time she wrote glowing affidavits about how wonderful a parent Peter was. She had told Dr. Elterman that I drank more than Peter did, which was interesting knowledge considering we rarely saw her during the eight years I was married to Peter. She had later moved to Vancouver Island and, in the last six months of Dash’s life, I would occasionally see her through Peter’s kitchen window as I dropped Dash off at his back gate. At the time, I wondered what she could possibly make of everything that went on there. At Dash’s funeral I pleaded with her, “Why did you never phone me and tell me what was going on? You knew what was happening,” and she started to cry, saying, “Maybe you’re right, maybe you’re right.” She lowered her voice and said, “I’ll call you,” but Peter shouted, “No you won’t! No you won’t!” And she didn’t.
It’s hard to bear a loss of innocence like that with equanimity. Counting on a community to come through for a child in need shouldn’t be unrealistic. Going to family court shouldn’t be a crapshoot. My poor strategic decisions — and I am sure there were many — shouldn’t have led to Dash’s death. Whether I stopped going to Dash’s soccer games or whether I hired the right lawyer, whether I was a good, compliant access parent or a tough, ballsy one, whether I wore high heels to court or sensible flats shouldn’t have mattered. Judges have to pull up a pew and get comfortable with being “super parents,” because there is no one else.
Meanwhile I will keep trying to raise awareness to make something good come out of an experience this personal and unbearable. Family, friends, and strangers have heard my story and in their own small way are advocates for change, whether it is around the dinner table or in their own relationships with their ex-spouses. Dr. Peggie Ward, who works with children ravaged by parental alienation; Catherine Meyer, who has been ceaseless in her advocacy for ten years on this issue and has just re-established contact with her own alienated children — we are a group, we live in a society, and there is work to be done.
If you asked me how a person survives the suicide of their child, my early guess is that we don’t. Not intact anyway. But we do go on. We make choices: to live or to hide. To let go of pain or to wear it as a badge. To move on, or to become paralyzed. The minister at Dash’s funeral told me, “Pam, you cannot grieve twenty-four hours a day. It is too hard. So grieve — have your moments — and then put them away and go on with your day.” His words were liberating. A friend said, “We have to believe Dash is in a better place now.” And I do. I see Dash everywhere as I drive around this city. In my daily life I pass the places we used to go, the parks we used to play in, the shop where we bought his skateboarding gear, and the one that sells his favourite sandwiches. For years my two sons played soccer on the same field Dash did, and every morning and every afternoon, as I drive them to and from school, we pass Dash’s old elementary, with its pretty red bricks and sweetly whimsical steeple. My heart remembers the struggle to see Dash. My whole body remembers how I clung to the wreckage that had been made of his childhood. But alongside that vast pain, I remember vividly the wonderful times I had with him and I feel his curly soft hair, see his sparkling brown eyes, his open smile, and his warm, happy being. I hear his laugh and the jokes we shared, and the magical evenings we spent watching the stars or cuddled up with the boys watching movies. And I can see him now. He is touching his two forefingers together, curling them inward and then curling his thumbs around each other. It is our little heart, the way we always said “I love you” and “goodbye” to each other when he was little. I have to think Dash is in a good place now, and I wish him peace. I wish all of us peace.
A Kidnapped Mind Page 33