Little Voices
Originally written 11/3/2023
Sometimes they come out as whispers, silently seeping in to your awareness.
Sometimes they burst through with jagged force into your heart.
Sometimes they make no sense at all and you wonder how the world twirls through their eyes.
Sometimes they resonate so deep you wonder how they see the world twist through your eyes.
Sometimes their voices fall into the deafness of their reality.
Sometimes it just takes the right one to hear.
Sometimes people might not believe these little voices.
Sometimes it just takes one big voice to refuse to let the little ones be silenced.
Sometimes it’s the little voices that keep the big voice going.
Sometimes it’s the little voices that matter the most.
The Story Behind the Poem
One evening in early 2023, my kids and I were in the living room playing together like any other night. There was nothing that particularly stood out about this day, but that night ended up changing our lives forever, and we had no idea as we sat and enjoyed each other’s company.
In the silence of that night, our lives began to shatter with the sounds of gunfire. Outside the safety of our living room, shots could be heard in rapid succession. We initially paused, thinking someone had fireworks, but the sounds just kept going. After about six pops, I knew it wasn’t for festive reasons. We later learned there were over 20 shots fired in a drive-by shooting that happened just three doors down from our house. Unfortunately, the woman walking alone on our street (and target of this attack) later died from her injuries.
None of us were harmed, but we understood it was a shooting and were all very rattled. The police came by that evening to ask questions, but I didn’t have any valuable information. We all went to bed and I did not think much else about it.
The next morning, I could tell my daughter was acting differently and seemed very on-edge. This went on for the entire day, but it was normal for our kids to act a bit differently because the next day was our transition day (custody schedule). However, after not eating much for dinner, she finally opened up about what was bothering her. It was this disclosure that was the catalyst for my biggest fight for our kids.
Our daughter explained that the shooting had triggered her anxiety, which she had dealt with for years at this point, and that she was very nervous to go to her Dad’s house. She felt she needed to tell me about something that happened at her Dad’s house a week and a half before this.
I won’t disclose all of what she told me, but it involved a very scary situation with her Dad and Step-Mom, a gun, and his suicidal ideation. This wasn’t the first time she had told me about his suicidal thoughts. This also wasn’t the first time I was dealing with them. My ex has been suicidal since we met in high school (over 20 years now) and I know well what it feels like to deal with his episodes of not wanting to be here anymore.
This particular situation was the scariest by far and my heart broke for her. Twice before this, she had talked to me about experiences she had with him threatening to take his life and each time I encouraged her to speak with her school counselors. She couragously did, both times (two counselors, two different schools), and each time, they told her there wasn’t anything they could do. This was now the third time she was reaching out for help and I could not bear the thought of her believing if she reaches out for help it wouldn’t be there.
Being the ex-wife in an extremely high-conflict divorce, I have never had much influence on their situation. Over the past two years, I had endured our children repeatedly begging to live with me instead of their Dad. Our custody had changed at that time due to consistent court hearings and changes to our custody made by my ex. The decision for that change will be an entirely other post, but the kids and I hated that change and I had been helping them cope ever since.
I did not know what I was going to do, but I told our daughter that I would try to get help. With the next daybeing their transition, she was very scared, but I told her I would work fast and do everything I could. We came up with a code emoji she could text me if she ever needed immediate help. Regardless of how hard it was, the kids went to their Dad’s that next day and I started reaching out for help.
My first step was to contact an attorney to understand what my legal options were in this situation. They encouraged me to file a Temporary Protective Order (TPO) for our kids and I went straight down to the courthouse to do that. This hearing happened rather quickly, but because the situation happened behind closed doors with his wife and not with the children, the Judge denied it. When I tried to explain that I fear what my ex will do if a situation like that happens again, the Judge encouraged me to call Child Protective Services (CPS).
With that recommendation, I called CPS from the courthouse parking lot. I had never called CPS at this point and just followed the questions and prompts from the representative. After providing all the information, the representative explained that they would review it and decide whether to open an investigation. Because I had told them the kids are with my ex for the next several days, the representative encouraged me to call in a welfare check since our daughter was so frightened.
Again, I followed the direction of others who were more experienced in this than me and I called in a welfare check. To all of these people, I explained what our daughter had disclosed to me, my ex’s previous suicidal episodes, and the involvement of a gun as a major escalation. I also expressed concern for my ex finding out it was our daughter who disclosed. I sent a quick text to our daughter to let her know people would be coming to help, but I did not know when and I did not tell her who was coming.
The police showed up that night. I received a call after stating that everything seemed fine and that when they spoke to my ex and his wife, they were more concerned with WHO called in the welfare check than anything else. The officers did not tell them who, and the night ended. The next day, CPS showed up and began their investigation on the premise that guns were being stored unsafely in the house.
When I had called CPS, the representative asked me a series of questions after I stated what our daughter had disclosed. Because a gun was involved, the representative asked me if I knew how the gun was stored. I told them what the kids had told me about previous experiences with his guns and explained I did not know how accurate that was. The kids had told me that my ex has several guns and keeps them stored under his bed. It was years ago that they told me this and I explained that to the representative. My biggest concern was having our kids (and the other kids in that house) around when he is threatening things with a gun. Regardless, “unsecured guns” was claim they went with.
I had been contacted by the CPS agent assigned to our case after they visited that evening, so I knew they had been there when I went to bed. I didn’t know what would happen, but I knew the wheels were in motion, and my concern for the kids was only growing.
The next morning, I woke up to a flurry of new text messages from my ex’s wife. All co-parenting was done by the women because my ex couldn’t do it amicably, so seeing her texts was not unusual. In fact, I had expected it eventually. Her text messages explained that they regularly go through the kids’ phones and they had done that the previous night. Apparently, they were appalled by our daughter’s text messages with her best friend, stating they were completely inappropriate. She had then sent multiple screenshots of the texts she felt were inappropriate.
I knew what was really happening.
In the screenshots she included, our daughter was speaking like a typical twelve-year-old girl who is annoyed with her siblings and family life. She used curse words and would tease our about her siblings. Nothing outrageous, nothing threatening, and none of this was ever spoken to their faces. Despite our daughter having very normal frustrations with her siblings, she was kind and helpful to them. These were private conversations between two best friends and there was nothing about them that alarmed me.
What I did not see were the actual concerning text messages our daughter had shown me the night she disclosed what happened. During the terrifying incident, our daughter had begun texting with her best friend because she was scared. She told her friend, in real time, what was happening and how scared she was. She had taken screenshots and sent them to me. I knew they existed, but my ex and his wife did not. But if they had seen all those ther text, I was sure they found those as well.
Being that it was first thing in the morning and wasn’t urgent, I had decided not to respond until after work. I mean, I honestly did not know how to respond. We had practiced parallel parenting due to our high-conflict for years now. The texts they were upset about happened on the phone they provided, and while at their house. The language she used in those texts was not the language she used around me, and she hadn’t actually vocalized those things to her siblings. I just did not have a problem with what they shared with me. As such, this would be their issue to work through, not mine.
I went about my day as usual, but a few hours later, I received an email from my ex’s wife. In this email, she explained that our daughter’s behavior lately had been really unacceptable. She detailed multiple instances they felt she was lying and being dishonest, as well as the fact that they felt she was not happy there. Their Step-Mom stated that, despite the fact they had not discussed it with our daughter, they knew she wanted to live with me and had already spoken to her brother (our son) about making that change and he stated he wanted to stay with their Dad. It all sounded backwards.
Now, let me pause for a moment and explain some context: My ex’s wife works in the legal field and, as such, she has been the one to write up the legal documents used in all the changes they were demanding all the time. From everything I knew over the past seven years at that point, she worked over 60 hours a week, and so all our documents would come on her time after her work commitments. She would also wait until we came to a full agreement on all the terms before she drafted the new legal document. This had been the normal process for almost a decade.
However, in this email, my ex’s wife included a fully written legal agreement giving me sole custody of our daughter and nothing changing for our son. Before I had even spoken to my ex’s wife about any of this AND before even speaking to our daughter, this very busy woman had already written up this agreement ready for me to sign. That was very out of the norm and red flags were going up.
I was still working while this was happening. On top of that, she had said in her email for me to take my time and to talk it over with my husband, so again, I did not respond to her. This was a major change and I wanted time to think it over because I was extremely uncomfortable with separating the siblings. A few more hours went by and I received another email from my ex’s wife.
Even though she had told me to take my time, she was following up to discuss the previous email. However, now she was stating they wanted the change to happen immediately, asking if I could pick our daughter up from school instead of my ex. Although she worded the emails to sound as if they wanted what was best for our daughter, I knew what was happening. They were kicking our daughter out and they wanted it to happen NOW.
One of the biggest concerns our daughter and I had was what would happen if her Dad found out she had been the one to reach out. As I said, I expressed that concern to the judge, to CPS, and to the police for the welfare check. I tried my best to be sure my ex did not find out who had disclosed the information for fear of how he would retaliate. And this felt a whole lot like retaliation.
I knew I needed to get our daughter out of his house as soon as possible and her not going there after school that day did feel like the best move. However, I was not willing to agree to separating the siblings. I quickly replied to my ex’s wife’s follow-up email stating I would take our daughter, but I am not comfortable separating them and we would need to discuss it further. They absolutely wanted our daughter out, but were completely unwilling to change the custody for our son as well. Regardless, we made the quick changes necessary for me to pick our daughter up after school, and I did just that.
Although I had my own opinions about what was going on, I knew it was important to hear our daughter’s perspective on everything without my opinions being known. As she got into my car, I had no idea just how much my eyes would be opened from listening to her experiences.
The first thing she said to me was, “am I going home with you?” I confirmed this and asked her to explain what happened after she left my house for her Dad’s a few days ago. I had expected to hear a series of events, but the timeline broke off quickly as she began describing her Dad picking her up from school that day. She explained that she was always anxious when he picks her up because he yells at her the entire ride home. She talked about how he seemed to find the smallest things to yell at her for and that it had been happening every time he picked her up from school for a while now.
This was the first time I was hearing these kinds of details about life at her Dad’s house and my heart broke even more for her.
She continued talking about the car ride home a few days ago, bringing us back to the timeline. When she got home that day, she went right to doing her household responsibilities, which she went into further detail as she derailed from the timeline again. Our daughter talked about feeling like the parent and how she has to take care of her brother and two step-siblings as well as the chores. She talked about all the responsibilities she had and how overwhelming it all was.
The timeline picked up again with the police arriving for the welfare check. She stated that after the police had left, her Dad immediately asked for her cellphone and began going through it. She did not know what he looked at but thought he checked her call log. Apparently, not finding what he was looking for, he handed back her phone. She stated that CPS came the next day and after they left, he confiscated her phone.
That brought us to this morning when I received the text from his wife, so I asked her about what occurred before she went to school. Our daughter recalled being greeted that morning by my ex and his wife berating her about the text messages and all the behavior from her they felt was inappropriate. In her mind, it felt like her very existence there upset them.
Her Dad took her to school and continued berating her until they got there. She talked about feeling so hurt by his words as he told her she was just a disappointment. At this point, she veered off the timeline again and told me about a traumatic experience with her Dad.
She described a time when her Dad had called her into his bedroom, where his wife was waiting to have a discussion together. In that room, our daughter was told by her Dad that he believes she wants to live with me and that she needed to admit it. Having dealt with his suicidal ideation many times before, although this statement was true, she feared telling him because she thought he would hurt himself. She stayed silent, but started crying. He pressed her further, getting more intense, trying to get her to say it. She remained quiet, refusing to hurt her Dad, but became more and more emotional over everything. While she cried in front of him, her Dad told her he knew she wanted to live with me, and if that were true, then he would “go down to the courthouse and have the judge sign papers saying [he is] no longer her Dad.”
That sentence stopped me. No, gutted me.
They can say our daughter is lying about this and lying about that…but what twelve-year-old knows about disownment, let alone the legal process in which it can happen? And if they do know about that….why? No, this was genuine, and I believed every word. Considering the emails I had received that morning, the fact that our daughter was coming home with me indefinitely on a non-custodial day, and everything she was saying…I had no doubt he said that to her.
She told me that when she received the message at school that morning that I would be picking her up instead, she told her friends she believed she was getting kicked out. I asked her why she thought that and she said that, based on the bedroom story, she just knew it was going to happen. She had told her friends about what was happening and they agreed with her that she was being kicked out as well. I know that I had my opinions, but this confirmed I wasn’t alone in them.
I’m going to fast-forward a bit to keep with the message of this post, but our son came back to me a few days later. I knew it was important to hear his perspective as well, just as I did with our daughter. We had a conversation alone together and he shared his version of events without knowing my opinions.
Our son told me about his sister getting kicked out and being afraid he would be, too. This was the very first thing he told me and it was relaying a conversation he’d had with his step-brother (who shared his fear) after his sister left. This meant that three out of the four children involved had described this situation as our daughter being kicked out. I asked him why he felt that way and he went on to describe the exact situation our daughter had about being disowned.
Word-for-word, our son quoted what their Dad had said and he was unaware that his sister had shared that story with me. Our son was ten years old at the time, so if I questioned a twelve-year-old knowing this, I definitely questioned any younger. I didn’t need any convincing, but so many things were lining up that made it hard not to believe our children.
This was a very emotional conversation as our son talked about being afraid of being at his Dad’s house without his sister. If there was one of our two children who complained about their Dad and wanted to live with me the most, it was our son. I had so many emotional conversations with him over the past two years as we dealt with feeling helpless in our living situations. I had known for two years that they did not want the change and wanted to live with me, but our son said it again in that moment.
He expressed not understanding that a parent could choose to be a parent like that and asked me to choose him and fight for him. I told him I have chosen him every day and always will. I promised to fight for him with everything I have that night. I sent him a heartfelt text message after he went to bed for him to read when he woke up that professed my dedication to him as a mother and ended with “I love you forever, no matter what.” This became a significant phrase throughout the future events and still is to this day.
What followed that was a fourteen-month-long, horrific custody battle over our son. This period was one of the most emotionally traumatic times our family had been through. There will be many posts about this timeframe because it turns out that much of my healing stemmed from it. However, I’m not going there just yet. Our son received the majority of the emotional trauma during this time as my ex tried furiously to alienate him from me. The relationship between our son and me became extremely strained during this time and he would frequently talk about hating me.
There were many moments when I wanted to give up. Emotionally, this custody battle broke me like I had never broken before. But I knew our son, I knew our experiences before all of this happened, and most importantly, I knew he wanted me to fight for him. There were so many times I felt I might just die trying, but I refused to give up that fight.
One night, while feeling emotionally depleted, I decided to write something to help me feel better. That was the birth of this poem and something that kept me going, no matter what.
I did hold on to their little voices, and although it didn’t happen like any of us wanted, I do now have sole custody of both our children. They are healing and thriving. They have chosen not to continue a relationship with their Dad based on their own conclusions about their experiences with him.
I was extremely intentional about not sharing my personal opinions of their Dad with them because I knew it was important for them to develop their own perceptions of him. And I supported their perceptions regardless of my own. This is why our children feel so strongly about not having a relationship with him now. Not because I said or did anything. But because of how they interpreted his own words and actions.
I truly hope that no one ever has to go through a battle like we did, but unfortunately, we live in a world where it happens all too often. I wrote this poem to help me remember why I was fighting when I felt I no longer had the strength. Now, I hope my words help someone who may be dealing with something similar.
Believe the little voices and be willing to speak up. Because, regardless of how you feel, those little voices are counting on your voice being bigger than theirs. Don’t let your self-doubt prove them wrong.