What would you have
done? (Part 1)
The following cases involving abandonment are selected as Part 1 of
a series on ‘What would you have done?’ This series presents to you traumatic events in the lives that
people were in and who had to make decisions on what they actually did or didn't do
when a traumatic situation came into their lives.
A person who abandons his or her family may feel
chronically overwhelmed by responsibilities and/or stress in a relationship
with his or her family. Physical abandonment changes a family system's roles,
rituals, and traditions, and social interactions in complex ways. Such
changes within the family can cause temporary or long-term anxieties until
family members adapt to them and stabilize themselves as a family again. The
abandonment may lower the family's functionality and generally will cause most
or all well-bonded family members a significant feeling of loss and insecurity
which may take years to overcome.
By giving that person who abandoned you your
forgiveness, you might experience peace, hope, gratitude and joy. But alternatively,
you may very well feel betrayed and a sense of resentment and a suspicion that
you will again be mistreated by that person. When someone you care about abandons you, you will probably at least
initially if not permanently, feel anger, resentment and thoughts of revenge.
Suppose one of your parents or your spouse
deliberately abandoned you and years later, that person re-entered your life
and asked you to forgive him or her. What would you do? The cases that follow
in this article are examples of people who abandoned their loved ones and the
responses of those who were abandoned.
In 2002, Brenda Heist was a car dealership bookkeeper, and
she was going through an amicable divorce and had just been turned down for
housing assistance. After she dropped off her children at school one day, she went
to a park and cried in despair. Three strangers reached out to comfort her and
then offered to let her join them. She readily accepted their invitation. On
that spur of the moment, she left her half-done laundry, the defrosting dinner
and her daughter and son, then 8 and 12 years old and vanished without a trace
from their lives.
Brenda and the three strangers hitchhiked for a month
along Interstate 95 on their way to South Florida. She slept in tents and under
bridges, survived by scavenging restaurant trash and panhandling and kept her
previous life a secret, contacting no one she knew while using a pseudonym.
Her husband, Lee Heist, was investigated. He said that there
were people in the neighbourhood who would not allow their children to play
with his children because he had been a suspect. He was cleared however
as a suspect and struggled to raise their children. By 2010, he was able to get
the courts to declare her legally dead and he subsequently collected on a life
insurance policy. He also remarried.
I don’t know what she was doing during the eleven years
she was away from her family but I do know that jail and court records show that
Kelsie Lyanne Smith (the name she was going under) was arrested in January 2013
on misdemeanour charges of marijuana possession, possession of drug
paraphernalia and providing false identification to law enforcement. After
pleading guilty, she was sentenced to time served and was released on February
13. She was also ordered to pay court costs but failed to do so and was found
delinquent on April 15. She also lived in central Pennsylvania for a while as a
vagrant.
Eleven years after she vanished without a trace, Brenda Heist
(now 54) approached police in Florida to explain that she had abandoned her two
children on the spur of the moment, leaving behind her old life in central
Pennsylvania to become as vagrant in Florida. She later explained about her
abandonment of her family by saying that she just snapped and turned her back
on her family, friends and her co-workers. She said that her ‘new life’ had now
lost its charm as she recounted her journey into a life of vagrancy. She also
told the police she had become homeless again, living in a tent facility run by
a social service agency. She said she was at the end of her rope and that she
was tired of running. Those statements to the police were probably the only
statements she said during that eleven-year absence that were honest.
Many people never take the time to learn what it takes to become a
loving spouse or a caring parent. It is just something many people think they
can handle until they face the reality of married life with the
responsibilities that go with it when they have children in the family.
Generally however, it is the fathers who abandon their families.
My own father (Louis Vincent
Batchelor—now deceased) was a rapist and my birth was the result of that rape.
At first, he supported my mother and me for a few months after my birth but he
later abandoned us to live with another woman for several years. Then he
returned a few years later and then joined the Canadian Air force. In 1944, he
returned to Canada and lived with his mother in Toronto for many months while
my mother, my younger brother and I were living in a small mining town in
British Columbia. When he decided to come to us, he got within 26 miles of our
town and changed his mind. He caught the train heading south and when he got
off of it, my aunt who was about to get on the train to return to Wells spotted
him and she later said that she had a tough time trying to convince him that he
should get back onto the train again and come to us. He did this but during the
summer of 1945, he abandoned us again and returned to Toronto permanently. Did
I ever forgive him? No. However, I saw him 20 years later and we met on three occasions
but I came to the conclusion then that he hadn’t really changed so I never
visited him again. For the rest of his life, (21 years) I never contacted him
and neither did my mother or my brother. Speaking for myself, I had my own life to live and I
didn’t need a loser cluttering up my life like he did when I was a child. Brenda Heist’s son
more or less forgave his mother, however her daughter has not done so.
Morgan Heist, now 19, said the news of her mother
resurfacing has made her recall with bitterness the years of mourning she
endured when she assumed her mother was dead and feared she’d been murdered.
She said, “I ached every birthday, every Christmas. My heart just ached. I
wasn’t mad at her. I wanted her to be there because I thought something had
happened to her. [Now] I wish I had never cried.” She also said that the
disclosure has angered her and she is not eager to restart their relationship. Her former husband said he was angry because of the
effect his children’s mother’s disappearance had on them, but he also said he
has forgiven her.
Brenda Heist was released from police custody in Florida and
is at the time of this writing, staying with a brother before she moves in with
her mother in Texas. She should be thankful that her mother didn’t abandon her
when she was a child.
Forgiveness in situations such as the examples I have
described to you is hard to offer someone who has deliberately abandoned you. Admittedly,
the act of forgiveness is a decision to
let go of resentment and thoughts of revenge. The act that hurt or offended you
might always remain a part of your life, but forgiveness can lessen its grip on
you and help you focus on other, positive parts of your life. Forgiveness can
even lead to feelings of understanding, empathy and compassion for the one who
hurt you.
I remember reading a story when I was a child about a man who was
always beaten with a rope by his father when he was a child. When he grew up
and was a farmer, his father whom he hadn’t seen in years, approached him
looking for work. His father at first didn’t recognize his son but when he saw that the man was carrying a short length of the rope with him, he realized that the farmer was the son whom he had beaten with
a similar rope when his son was a child. He stood there in front of his son and trembled in fear. Then
his son said, “Hi Dad. It’s nice seeing you again. Come and help me bring my
cows back to the barn.” His son had forgiven him.
I did not forgive my
father because he never changed. He was always abandoning his responsibilities.
To me, he was a loser that I didn’t want or need cluttering up my own life like
he cluttered up our lives earlier.
What would you do if
someone you loved abandoned you simply because he or she wanted to live a
different life without you and then that person came back and said that he or she wanted to be part of your life again? If you have an opinion, feel free to submit it and
I will enter in at the bottom of this article.
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