March 6: I’ve noticed that in life, there are these instances of duality that occur: A huge positive event happens… but it can be completely tied to something horrible.
March 6, 2021, was that for me: the last day I saw my son, Alexander.
On March 6, 2021, it was a visitation day on a Saturday, meaning we had the entire day together.
It was also our first visit since the family therapy session 36 hours prior, which was by far the biggest win Alexander and I had in the previous 3 years.
In that court-appointed family therapy session, after only needing around 4 sessions, the therapist said what I had been waiting 3 years to hear: that she was making the formal recommendation that Alexander would finally be able to start sleepovers and use the bedroom that I made for him 3 years earlier.
In addition, she said she would recommend that Alexander and I have even more visits together, and that the supervisor I suggested for all visits to avoid continued █████████████████████████████████████ would no longer be needed.
Now, the March 4th therapy session had its issues.
The psychologist called me an hour prior to the session to discuss everything with me.
It was pure joy as it meant Alexander would finally be able to start having a normal life. It wouldn’t mean that his mother would invite me to Alexander’s birthday parties, or ever let him be in the company of both parents at the same time. But it did mean that he could finally have his father normalized in his life.
Given the █████████████████████████████████████████████ from the previous three years, I asked her to please submit her recommendation before the family session. She said she’d bring it up in the session instead. I begged her, saying that there is no way █████████████████████████████████████████████ and that, as the psychologist, she was the only hope.
You can pretty much assume how the family therapy session went, given what you know today.
But regardless, I kept doing what I’ve been doing most of my life and every day since Alexander came into my life: I maintained optimism.
So I picked up Alexander on March 6, and we walked to Plaza República de Paraguay park to play. It was a nice day out, and with the pandemic, it meant there were next to no others in the park at 8:30 in the morning.
In addition to playing on the playground together and running around, we also had a tradition of sitting in the garden area under a large tree with seed pods. We’d find the driest pods, take the seeds out, and build a little village with the seeds and rocks we found.
That was the last photo I ever took of Alexander.
Since I chose to live just a 20-minute walk from our previous home as a family, so we could be close to Alexander and the park, we walked to our apartment to prepare lunch.
That day, we made spaghetti and meatballs.
This was always one of the fun foods we made together.
I’d fill each tiny individual bowl with a specific spice or ingredient. Then I’d put the ground beef in a large mixing bowl.
Alexander would then add each spice, and I would tell him what it is and what it adds to the dish. Some spices he would taste and enjoy, as long as they weren’t “pica,” meaning spicy. If there was even too much black pepper in a dish, he’d say “pica pica!”.
Then the rest of the work was Alexander’s. He’d pour each ingredient into the mixing bowl, I gave him a large wooden spoon, and he’d mix everything together. If it needed an extra mix at the end, I’d finish it.
We’d then carry the bowl out to the dining room table, and on a large tray, Alexander would form all of the meatballs.
I’d then cook them, and we’d have lunch.
After lunch and after we did the dishes, we were in his bedroom picking out toys to play with that afternoon.
I took that as the right time to let Alexander know the good news: that we would be spending more time together.
I was so happy for this moment because it felt like our lives were finally converging again after so many years, when each visit was a gamble as to whether it would even happen, for some phantom reason they couldn’t. The tears I was holding back were tears of joy.
Alexander was sitting on his bed with Malia, and I excitedly told him, in Castellano, that I had good news to share and that we would have more visits from now on.
“Si Papa?!?” he said with his eyes wide and a big smile.
Our conversation was entirely in Spanish, and I said: “Yes, many more days and more time each visit too!”
“¡Mucho más!?!?!?, Sí, papá!”
Alexander was so excited that Malia jumped off the bed and went into the living room.
It’s amazing how, in life, such an amazing moment can change so quickly when the reality of what a child is experiencing surfaces.
I then told him he’d also get to start sleeping over on the weekends, and I pointed to Malia’s dog bed in his room and said that, just like when he was a baby, Malia would be sleeping in his room with him.
Alexander’s huge smile changed to a frown, and he looked down at the ground and said, “No, Papa”.
I didn’t understand how Alexander could go from so happy and excited to suddenly looking sad.
Still excited, I spoke to him in Spanish, saying, “Yes, the nice doctor he had spoken to that Mama and Papa meet with said that it’s time for it!”
Alexander replied, still looking down at the ground, “No, Papa.”
My smile was no longer genuine because I didn’t understand how Alexander could go from so happy and excited to being sad.
So I asked him, “¿Por qué?
Still not able to look at me, he said, “Porque Mama no permite”, in other words, “because Mama won’t allow me”.
I kept the smile and positivity and explained that everything would be alright, that all the people he had met with were supportive of this, and that it would be OK. By “people he met”, I was referring to █████████████████████████████████████████████████████████.
But that “mama no permite” comment broke my heart, which seemed to happen all the time since the day I left the home we all lived in.
During an earlier visit, I gave Alexander a framed photo of him and me from when he was a baby to put on his nightstand. I told him that even if I’m not there in person every night to put him to sleep anymore, that I’d always be there in his heart and that all he has to do is look up and see the photo of the two of us together.
He was so happy, as it was a moment where he could break through all the noise and just be the kid who loves his papa.
The kid whose first word was “Daddy” because back then I was allowed to speak English in the house, and that was my name to Alexander: “Daddy”, not “Papa”.
This is the kid whose first steps were walking to me, and I got it on video.
The same kid who, when he was sick or woke up from a nightmare, would call for “Papa” only.
But even gifting Alexander this framed photo was apparently a problem for him back home. He wanted to put it on his nightstand, but was told he wasn’t allowed, which triggered █████████████████████████████████████████████.
During another visit months later, I took out a huge box and put it on the bed. Inside were hundreds of photos that I printed of Alexander and me, and of Alexander, Malia, and me, and even photos from his first year with both parents and him.
We always did arts and crafts on each visit, and he was excited when we began this project. I showed him the big photo album and said he could choose which photos to use, and we would put them in the album together.
He had so much fun doing it, with photos scattered all around the bed, making piles to organize, and then we put the album together.
At the end of the day, we were packing up his things to put in his backpack for the trip home.
But he left the photo album in the living room, taking it out of his bag.
I said in Spanish, “Hey Bud, don’t forget to pack your book”.
He looked down and said, “Para ti,” or “it’s for you.” I explained that I had already made many albums with the same photos and that this one was for him.
And that’s when that phrase came up again: “Mama no permite”.
My son was scared to bring home a photo album that included photos of his father, out of fear that █████████████████████████████████████.
So fast forward to March 6, 2021.
After lunch and the alarming conversation that he feared angering his mother with sleepovers, we spent the rest of the afternoon just drawing in the living room.
As with all the visits, Aura, the tecnico parvulo (supervisor hired with a master’s in early childhood development) sat on the sofa as Alexander and I finished up the day’s visit.
And like every Saturday during that period of visits for the 2-3 month span, Aura and I took Alexander back to his mother’s.
That would be the last time I saw Alexander, that March 6, 2021.
Aura and I received a text message from █████████████████ saying that Alexander had just told her that he had been █████████████████████████████████████████ during the visit.
Despite having visitation rights, the visits stopped. Every attempt became █████████████████████████████████.
Every visit required the same process: meet the guarantor at his mother’s home, wait and wait for a response from ███████████████████████████████████████, and then I’d have to go to the police to get a report on the blocked visitation.
I did that 90 times, 90 reports. But █████████████████████████████████████.
It’s really an interesting component when it comes to separated parents and co-parenting.
If a father has visitation and hypothetically arrives 1 minute late to return the child, the mother can file a report that the father isn’t complying with the agreement, and the father gets that legal “ping” on their record for the ongoing agreement.
Yet, when the other parent blocks a visit, there is rarely anything done.
Fast forward to today: March 6, 2026.
Alexander was 2.5 years old when I moved out on September 11, 2018.
He was 2.5–5 years old while I was navigating a high-conflict divorce, constantly on the defense due to ███████████████████████████████████████████████ and slowly making progress each time.
I mean, when you have around 20–30 court cases in 3 years, and you win all of them at the time, you maintain optimism that the other parties involved in the parent and the courts will eventually put the pieces together.
Alexander is 10 years old now, and I don’t even know what he looks like because I haven’t seen him since he was 5.
But I’m still optimistic.
Every day is a struggle…don’t ever think that it isn’t for any of us parents experiencing this █████████████████████████████████████████████████████.
So today, on March 6, it’s not just about the realization that it’s been 5 years to the day without contact with my baby boy.
For me, it’s about that feeling of joy 5 years ago today, when Alexander was so happy to hear we’d be getting more time together, the big hugs that day, and what was the happiest he and I had been together when a little boy got to express excitement that he’d get more time with his Papa.
That joy is my fuel. Optimism and hope are how we increase our strength.
I hope he still feels that inside as well.
I love you, Alexander! Papa hasn’t given up and never will! ❤️💪
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