LET IT GO
By Deedra Hunter

Why is it so hard for us to let go ? Let go of the old, familiar, good, bad, loved one, or even the hated one? I watched with most of the world recently Nancy Regan in her process of letting go. As long as she had one more day Mrs. Regan was able to lay her head on President Regan's casket, touch it lovingly and back away. But that last goodbye in California was different. She approached the casket as she had been doing all week. She touched it and then the enormity of what was going to happen seemed to now become clear. This was it. Her relationship of 52 years was over - gone. It was time to finally let go. I started to hold my breath because she was starting to faulter. Nancy Regan was obviously, painfully, struggling. I watched as she sobbed and seemed confused and disoriented. Clutching to the casket, Mrs. Regan did not want to get up and walk away from what had been her life. The most real of human emotions had her in it's grip. Unabided and unrelentless, the most awful of awful feelings took hold of her. What is that feeling? It's the one we want to avoid at all costs. It is the feeling of fear that comes with the thought of being permanently separated from a long held attachment.

I do not know of one custody suit that does not have this element of letting go, this tremendous fear of loss attached to it. Lawyers play into this primal terror and earn far more money than they deserve manipulating gullible parents into believing that one can be a winner while happily making the other a loser. The family court system, as it now exists, absolutely, promotes this horrible misconception and the hundreds of custody cases I know of personally support this statement. Well, I am here to tell you there are NO winners in a custody suit except the lawyers. The trauma inflicted on everyone by angry parents, greedy lawyers, and an antiquated judicial system lasts forever.
Learning to let go would be a giant step forward toward a more productive family court system. And what is it, you might be asking, do we need to let go of? First, we need to let go of trying to get revenge on the other parent. Second, we need to let go of thinking that if the children are living with one parent the other parent has "lost" their children. What nonsense. Children need both parents and parents need to be mature enough to grasp that concept. And third, parents need to let go of using the legal system as a means to retain power and control over their newly split family unit. Our definition of what a family is has changed and parents, once again, have to be mature enough to form a new family system defined by needs of their children.

Mrs. Regan finally did back away from the President's casket and let go. We, as people involved in custody battles, must learn to do the same.