Fathers Day 2012, RIP

Unfortunatley, we weren't allowed to spend Father's Day with one another today. This is the second of five Father's Days in your life in which we were denied that; the other time was in June 2008 when your mother took you away the first time from me and the two of you lived with Grandma and Grandpa Bignell (my parents). At least you got to see your real grandfather that day.

We spent Father's Day 2011 at Disneyland. You participated in the Jedi Academy, we rode some of the rides in Fantasyland, went into Tarzan's Treehouse, and skipped on over to California Adventure top watch the Green Army Men band. We also got to watch a Beatles tribute band, Paperback Writer, perform at Downtown Disney. It truly was a great day; the only thing sad about it was that I had to bring you back to your mother's that evening, and for me the drive back to San Diego was unbearably long and lonely, as they always were.

I have since learned that Paperback Writer played at Downtown Disney on Father's Day 2012. Oh how I wish I could have taken you and Jane there so we could have watched it together as a family!

Rest assurred, Kieran, I am working night and day to be able to see you  again soon. Hopefully, we will get to spend Father's Day 2013 with one another. We'll be a long way from Disneyland, but I will find something fun for us, guaranteed!

Can't wait to show you some old westerns

Just before we were forced apart, Kieran, you'd taken a real interest in the Old West. You had cowboys and Indians play characters, a cowboy hat and pistol/rifle set we bought at Disneyland, and liked to visit the cowboy heritage museum in Los Angeles as well as Vasquez Rocks where some old westerns were filmed. This all comes back to me today because I'm spending the day with your grandpa and grandma, and grandpa is watching an old western ("The Rebel," I think) on television.

In March/April when I was moving Jane out to California to live with us, along the way I found a DVD with 150 old western TV shows, including "The Lone Ranger," on it.  You never got to see it as it was stuck in one of the many totes we never unpacked, but after Jane moved out, it fortunately was left behind. I can't wait to watch it with you when we are together again!

Remember our many hikes together?

I've started writing a new book about hiking trails, Kieran, this time focusing on those in northern Wisconsin and Minnesota. Sure wish you could join me on some of those trails. While not quite as dramatic as the mountains and deserts we've climbed in Southern California, they're still scenic in their own right, and we still can find rock to touch that is more than a half billion years old.

We did some fantastic hikes together in your preschool days, Kieran, walking beneath 15-story high redwoods, scaling mountain peaks almost two miles about sea level, traipsing miles across bone-dry deserts and dried-up ancient lakes. I'm sure you remember some of them, especially the Kirk Rocks (as you called them), which really is Vasquez County Park. Check out my Facebook photo albums to see if any of the pics jog your memory at all.

I've kept topo maps from all of the hikes we've been on together, so if one day you ever wish to do them again for yourself, you'll be able to. I've also got a box of gems, fossils and cool rocks we've collected over the years on our many hikes. When you're on your own, I'll be happy to give them to you. I've got many stories to share with you about them.

Hopefully we'll soon be together again and once again can get back into the wilds. I'll be thinking of you everytime I step on a new trail this summer.

Ask me about Jane when you see me

Well Kieran, today is the last day in my life that I'll see Jane. I'm sure you remember her; the two of you got along so well. Unfortunately, I messed up that relationship, and in doing so failed not just Jane but you. I so desperately wanted to provide you a real home with two loving parents, one where you could see what it was for a husband and a wife to love one another. I thought it would be so simple, that so long as the woman I was with wasn't like your mother that it would all work. In many ways, I wanted to prove to myself that I wasn't at fault for the broken marriage with your mother, to make up for my failing to provide you with what I always wanted to give you. But I let me pride get in my way; I wasn't capable of being the kind of man who provided all that I 'd promised in my heart to you and Jane. For that, I apologize to both of you.

I really did love Jane; I didn't want her in my life just to be your proxy mother or my proxy wife. As I write this, I must admit that I still do love her. The two of you provided my life and all I did with meaning and purpose. But now you're both gone, and I've lost the two most important people in my life, all within a matter of a day.

Jane must despise me for being dishonest with her, and I know she never wants to return to my life. That will take me a long time to deal with. My only hope now is that one day you will return to me.

If we do meet again, ask me about Jane. I want to tell you stories about what how the two of you had so much fun together. I want to tell you about what a wonderful woman she was, and how I was a fool to push her away. I want to tell you this not so you will be my confessor but because I want you to never make the mistakes I did and so suffer the emptiness that I feel today.

Justice unserved in Minnesota today

I lost another major effort today to be able to see you, Kieran. The family court in Hennepin County, Minn., decided that I would not be able to see you for two years (until June 13, 2014), and when that time comes I'll have to fight for the right to see you. They were willing to limit me to two visits a month that were supervised by your mother's step-dad, an obvious set-up. All he'd have to do is make up a story that I hit you, and I'd lose all rights to see you. So I had to pass up on that until I get an attorney who will fight for our rights to be with one another. The court also said you and I could talk to one another, but only by a telephone call that you initiate. Like at five years old you can use the phone or your mother's family ever would let you use it!

Part of the judge's decision came from false stories that I hit you with a closed fist and knocked you to the ground at Disneyland because you wouldn't go on a scary ride. My God, what idiots the court is to believe this! If I'd ever hit you at Disneyland, Disney security would be all over me, not to mention some parents who wouldn't find such abuse acceptable (I certainly wouldn;t find it acceptable and would step between parent and child). It's a sick story that your mother has coached you to say, and I want you to know that I am not angry with you or hold you responsible for repeating this story. I know that you're very afraid of not being able to see your mother again if you don't say what she tells you to. Do not worry, though, Kieran; I will work night and day to pay for the attorneys to stop this travesty of justice so we can see one another again.

Remember our paper doll characters on blocks?

While writing my new book, "Hikes with Tykes: Games and Activities for, before and after the Trail," I suggested an activity that I quickly realized was something I'd pulled from our time together, "Paper Doll Friends": "For preschoolers, create a hiking family as well as animals seen along the way that they can use to relive their adventures or to make up new ones, getting them excited about the next hike. Paper dolls and cartoon animals easily can be found through a search engine for images, printed and cut out. Have your kids help select the paper dolls to print. To get the paper dolls to stand, glue or tape them to blocks that your kids easily can hold in their small hands."

Do you remember when I used to do that with you? Whenever you came to like a new television show, and we couldn't find action figures to buy, I'd locate pictures of the characters online, print them out, and tape them to blocks. I did it at least for "Johnny Quest," "Fireman Sam," "Scooby Doo" (the villains anyway), and "Caillou." Since the ink on the paper always had to dry, and I'd always glue the paper to cardboard so it would hold up longer, there was this terribly long wait for you, and you'd always ask me if the pieces were ready yet!

One day after I'd taught you to use a scissors and glue, you started cutting out Peanuts characters from the Sunday comics and taping them yourself to blocks! I was so proud of you, and so moved that you loved these paper dolls so much that you would make them yourself, just like daddy did.

Don't feel shame or anger, my son

I suspect as the years have passed, Kieran, that you feel intense anger at me for not being a part of your life. With no father to talk with, to play with, to help with homework, or just to hang out with, you no doubt are angry because of missed opportunities and and because of the big hole in your life that never can be filled. Perhaps you've felt like you were on your own and lacked the secure feeling of knowing that your father loves you and would look out for you if things got to be too much for a young boy to handle.

Possibly you even feel ashamed of having these emotions.

Don't feel shame or anger, my son.

First, I understand your emotions. I grew up feeling the same way about my own father. Though he always was there in the house or in the fields of the farm I grew up on, the demands and intensity of his work often left him too tired to interact meaningful. For years I felt nothing but insecurity about myself and anger at him and at the life the fates apparently had woven for me. It is these insecurities and anger that caused me to destroy a relationship with a wonderful woman for whom I felt a love deeper than I'd ever experienced for any other woman. It is these insecurities and anger that led to a great unraveling in my life that ultimately caused our ties to be broken.

Secondly, I do not stay away from you through any choice of my own. While my pride and foolishness may have led to our separation, I never desired being apart. In the time we were together, I tried to be the father to you that my father could not be to me, and I have no greater desire in life than to continue being that father to you that I'd always wished I had myself. The powers that be, alleging that our separation is necessary for your "safety" have built their arguments on thier own unaddressed fears and on falsehoods with the intention of punishing me for failing them. I did indeed fail them, but neither I nor you should be punished for this.

Do not make the same mistakes I have. Once we are together again, I will better explain all of this to you should you like, and maybe it will be clearer. But if you feel anger or shame or insecurity, seek help from someone that can be trusted. I will continue the good battle to be able to see you again, and when that time finally comes, I will be there for you.