My husband and I believe that government, by its nature, has a heavy hand. While it is of use for running the military, it is dangerous when it serves as a replacement for families, churches and synagogues, local and state governments, and other local and state organizations and institutions. And I know personally what harm the hand of government can do, even a state government when its authority is too overreaching. Because I was once in a marriage in which my (first) husband was irresponsible in alcoholism, and the social services bureau took the heavy-handed and unconstitutional action of taking away from me my children, with whom I hope one day to be reunited. My fault was not having enough respect for myself — from the abuses that I had suffered myself when I was growing up — to leave my husband at that time when he was putting our lives at risk. But had the bureau not been the unfeeling bureaucracy that it had become, it would have seen the love that was still there and the fact that my (first) husband was, at that time, well on the way to recovery. But having too much control, government can destroy a family, a community, and ultimately a country. I am writing this blog at Your Code of Ethics, in part, because I don’t want that to happen to us.
I also have other motivations for writing this blog. For it is my hope that, as the blog gets publicity, one of my children, or my children’s friends or relatives, will happen to notice this, and that through it I can re-establish contact with all of them. My married name when my children were taken from me was Sabrina Terrell (Mrs. Robert Terrell; specifically, Mrs. Robert Lewis Terrell, Jr.), and we were living in Wanchese, North Carolina, near Manns Harbor. I later lived in Manteo. Please send a comment (below) if you have any information about my family, and I’ll be eternally grateful!
NOTE TO MY CHILDREN: On this page which I wrote a couple years ago, I have expressed my sadness about the way that the social services bureau had taken my children from me (decades ago) and that I blame social services. I have since been told that my children (whom I have not yet been able to contact) have read this and that they concluded that they don’t want to talk to me. As this comes from a third party, I do not even know if it’s true. But assuming that they are upset by it, I, firstly, want to apologize from the bottom of my heart. I love my children dearly. So I ask them please to understand that I do hope that they have had wonderful, fulfilling lives with their adoptive parents. But please also understand that, while I wish them only joy, that the loss of them has been the most devastating thing that has ever happened to me. So while the social services having taken them from me may have, in the long run, resulted in great joy for them, it brought me only terrible sadness. So to my children I want to say: Please see things from my point of view. I never wanted to lose you, and I didn’t deserve to lose you. You don’t know all the details, so please don’t judge until you’ve taken the time to talk to me…please. That’s all I want is to be able to communicate with my children.