Law Students

The Appeal

By Anonymous

Tomorrow morning at 10 AM, JP and I will be in court for his DCFS appeal. We will both testify on his behalf, listen to any testimony against us, and then wait for the decision that is supposed to arrive within 90 days. I haven't written much about it, even though it's been on my calendar and my mind for weeks. There's been plenty of stress from other sources (like papers and teething) as well as other happy things to write about (like prom and crawling babies with giggling video clips). And the DCFS stuff seems so over the top and caused such a firestorm of drama back when I was writing about it day by day that I'm almost embarrassed to bring it back up again. I also just haven't had a lot to say, in real life or in this blog. I'm dreading it-- dreading putting any hope back in their incompetent hands, dreading having to search for words to convince another stranger of what a wonderful father JP is to Landon, dreading seeing Dr. K again and listening to her testify with certainty that we're child abusers, dreading the flash backs to those horrible days when we saw Landon for an hour in a supervised room and didn't know when he would come home...

I don't want to go. I'm not yet angry about what happened; when I let myself think about it at all I just feel sad and scared and weak with relief that it's over. I told JP that I would support him 100% in an appeal, but he had to make the decision to file it because if were up to me I wouldn't do it. I know I'd regret it later, and I think the moral victory is important, but I like pretending we're done and we're fine and that I don't think about what happened in October a hundred little times a day. I wrote a few weeks ago that I go whole days without thinking about DCFS. I've realized since that wasn't true, I think about them all the time. The difference is that those thoughts no longer paralyze me; they pass through my brain and move on, sometimes I barely notice they were there. That feels like a big step forward and makes me wonder if there will ever be a day when I don't think about some moment of that nightmare at least once. I'm not sure there will be and I hate them for that.

There is reason to be optimistic. The burden of proof is higher for the appeal than the investigation. DCFS must prove "by a preponderance of the evidence that abuse or neglect did occur." I have no idea how they will show that, which is perhaps why the appeal success rate is 75% in Illinois. It's also comforting to know that the worst case scenario is the status quo, and that we're doing okay with the way things are. We're permanently leaving the state and the odds of his indication mattering in Texas are extraordinarily small. Of course it would be wonderful to win - to clear his name and to feel like we finally pushed back, but I'm trying not to get my hopes up. We won't pursue the appeal past this stage (which is in front of a DCFS administrative law judge)- it's not worth the time, money, and stress- especially from 1,000 miles away.

I wish we could just bring in the mountain of video clips and pictures that show how much Landon adores his dad. I've had to make JP leave the room when I'm taking pictures because Landon won't look at the camera if he can somehow get a glimpse of his daddy's face instead. Here is an example from last week when JP standing to my right and Landon would not look away from him:

JP is an amazing, loving father and it is beyond absurd that his name will be on a child abuse registry for the next 20 years. I've always thought of myself as a fighter, as someone who would never just roll over when falsely accused of something, and I hate that they've shown me I'm not as strong as I thought I was.

I don't want to go tomorrow. Not. At. All. But for JP I will.

Full post as published by Lag Liv on May 13, 2008 (boomark / email).