This year will mark the fourth Christmas we are unable to spend with our granddaughter. For almost 12 years she was a special part of our lives. I was involved in her school, picking her up from school, while my daughter, her mother, worked full time and studied for her college degree. I helped with Shabbat on Fridays and even joined the PTA.
She had a special gift with music, she could play a song by ear. She took piano lessons, learned the drums and took voice. I am so grateful that I recorded and kept most of her performances.
Most Friday nights she would spend the night in our home. She had her own bedroom which included a headboard in the shape of a crown which my husband, her grandfather, lovingly made by hand. It was a ritual to wake up Saturday mornings and go the Rincon Market for a waffle.
She and I traveled together in the summers visiting my brother in Texas, one of my nieces in New York and another niece in Hawaii. I cannot begin to tell you what a joy my granddaughter was.
Due to a heated custody battle that has been ongoing for almost four years, has cost the equivalent of a college education at Harvard, involved 9 attorneys (6 of which were paid for by the taxpayers) 7 therapists and 5 judges, all we have left are memories.
Pima County Family Court is ill equipped to handle contentious custody battles. Their answer is to assign psychologists, mediators, court advisors, special masters, therapists and whatever other “professional” they can come up with. They create problems rather than help solve them and contribute to the destruction of families and the emotional abuse of children.
So this Christmas, Retired Judge Stephen Villareal, Commissioners Ken Sanders and Jack Assini, Attorneys Brian Kimminau, Uri Palmer, Nannette Warner, Jane Jacobs and Colleen Kinerk, as you are sitting around enjoying time with your family, remember all the children, parents and grandparent’s lives you have torn apart “in the best interest of a child.”
A Sad Grandma
C. Oxman