Read Online Dani's Story: A Journey From Neglect to Love by Diane Lierow, Bernie Lierow, Kay West - Free Book Online Page B
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beautiful lady. I care for her for 6 years until you took her away from me. She was never abuse by any family member. She was love and care for. She was well feed and happy and healthy. I used to read to her, take her to the park, take her shopping with me, take her to the library. My house became a rundown do to I just started my new job and I was sick for 3 months with bronchitis. I have my life straight out now and I need to get my daughter back. She is the love of my life and I cry everyday for Danielle. Please let me see her again. I need to know she is okay or hear her on the phone. Thank you, [mother].
Bernie looked at Garet and said exactly what I was thinking. “What world is that woman living in? How can she think anyone would believe her?”
Luckily, the courts did not believe her. I’m sure it wasn’t the first time that someone who was about to lose her child through her own actions had lied. The Termination of Parental Rights Trial was held from August 21 through August 26. The mother, her boys, the Plant City Police Department, HKI, the guardian ad litem, and Dr. Kathleen Armstrong all gave testimony.
The Petition for Termination of Parental Rights was accepted after the trial, and Judge Martha Cook entered a sixteen-page Order of Adjudication of Dependency and Judgment of Involuntary Termination of Parental Rights as to the mother and the father on September 21, 2006. I imagined a gavel coming down on a block of wood as she pronounced the decision.
The date rang a bell in my head. I turned back to the cover page of the report. Just under her name, Danielle Ann Crockett, and beside her photo was “Child’s Date of Birth: September 21st, 1998.” Below that: “Date of Adjudication: September 21, 2006.” I showed Bernie, and tears came to his eyes as they had to mine. I’m sure it was a coincidence that Danielle was emancipated on her eighth birthday. But we took it as a sign that God was sending his precious child the most beautiful gift, clearing the way for her new life to begin.
Chapter 9
Truth and Consequences
The termination of parental rights had legally freed Danielle from her mother on her eighth birthday, but this didn’t mean that Danielle would ever be free of the heart-wrenching consequences of being under that woman’s control for the first seven years of her life.
The next part of the Child Study was titled “Medical & Developmental Information.” I felt my stomach turn and my throat tighten again; we were about to hear the hard facts about Danielle’s physical and intellectual state from the time she was taken into custody up until the present. We had already witnessed some of her behavioral and developmental issues that day.
The first people to test Danielle were members of the Child Protection Team at Tampa General Hospital shortly after she was removed from her home. As big a step as it was toward getting her well physically, she must have been so frightened. After being taken from the only environment she had ever known, surrounded by the only people she had ever known, where she had been left alone in a dim and dirty room, day and night, Danielle was transported to the brightly lit, ultrasanitized, loud, bustling environment of a children’s hospital. She was being bathed, changed, and examined by complete strangers, eating unfamiliar food, and sleeping in an unfamiliar bed. Garet told us that she had been placed in an oversized crib, with bars that reached higher than she could climb. I thought she must have been, at the least, confused and disoriented, if not terrified, and I felt so sad for her.
Whether Danielle knew it or could express it, all that she probably wanted was to be held on someone’s lap like a child with her mother, safe, secure, and loved. Instead, she was being poked, prodded, and tested. I hoped that during the testing and the observation, someone took a moment to give her a hug, stroke her hair, kiss her
Bernie looked at Garet and said exactly what I was thinking. “What world is that woman living in? How can she think anyone would believe her?”
Luckily, the courts did not believe her. I’m sure it wasn’t the first time that someone who was about to lose her child through her own actions had lied. The Termination of Parental Rights Trial was held from August 21 through August 26. The mother, her boys, the Plant City Police Department, HKI, the guardian ad litem, and Dr. Kathleen Armstrong all gave testimony.
The Petition for Termination of Parental Rights was accepted after the trial, and Judge Martha Cook entered a sixteen-page Order of Adjudication of Dependency and Judgment of Involuntary Termination of Parental Rights as to the mother and the father on September 21, 2006. I imagined a gavel coming down on a block of wood as she pronounced the decision.
The date rang a bell in my head. I turned back to the cover page of the report. Just under her name, Danielle Ann Crockett, and beside her photo was “Child’s Date of Birth: September 21st, 1998.” Below that: “Date of Adjudication: September 21, 2006.” I showed Bernie, and tears came to his eyes as they had to mine. I’m sure it was a coincidence that Danielle was emancipated on her eighth birthday. But we took it as a sign that God was sending his precious child the most beautiful gift, clearing the way for her new life to begin.
Chapter 9
Truth and Consequences
The termination of parental rights had legally freed Danielle from her mother on her eighth birthday, but this didn’t mean that Danielle would ever be free of the heart-wrenching consequences of being under that woman’s control for the first seven years of her life.
The next part of the Child Study was titled “Medical & Developmental Information.” I felt my stomach turn and my throat tighten again; we were about to hear the hard facts about Danielle’s physical and intellectual state from the time she was taken into custody up until the present. We had already witnessed some of her behavioral and developmental issues that day.
The first people to test Danielle were members of the Child Protection Team at Tampa General Hospital shortly after she was removed from her home. As big a step as it was toward getting her well physically, she must have been so frightened. After being taken from the only environment she had ever known, surrounded by the only people she had ever known, where she had been left alone in a dim and dirty room, day and night, Danielle was transported to the brightly lit, ultrasanitized, loud, bustling environment of a children’s hospital. She was being bathed, changed, and examined by complete strangers, eating unfamiliar food, and sleeping in an unfamiliar bed. Garet told us that she had been placed in an oversized crib, with bars that reached higher than she could climb. I thought she must have been, at the least, confused and disoriented, if not terrified, and I felt so sad for her.
Whether Danielle knew it or could express it, all that she probably wanted was to be held on someone’s lap like a child with her mother, safe, secure, and loved. Instead, she was being poked, prodded, and tested. I hoped that during the testing and the observation, someone took a moment to give her a hug, stroke her hair, kiss her
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