What Ever Happened to David Goldman?

Sean and David Goldman

 I love the end of December when the networks and cable channels reminisce about the last twelve months, and you pause to think about the people who’ve passed.   Some you didn’t realize had died, and you emit an unconscious gasp while others you mourn all over again.

Can we ever find another Steve Jobs, Andy Rooney, Christopher Hitchens, or Elizabeth Taylor?  What a loss to humanity.

 

I was talking to a friend about it, and we were naming more names when I wondered what happened to David Goldman.  Remember him?   His ex-wife snatched their five year old son Sean in 2004 and flew him to Brazil.  It was only supposed to be a vacation, but once there, she announced she’d never returned.  She remarried and died in childbirth--I applauded her death--sorry, but she deserved it--and David was left fighting his former in-laws and the widowed husband through the Brazilian courts for custody.   It was an endless battle lasting a heartbreaking five years.    

I remembered it concluded around Christmastime.   “Just last December,” I said, but I was wrong.  Turns out it had been two years already, in 2009.  Sean was nine.   Today, he’s eleven.   His father David calls their time together, “a miracle.”  He’s also written a memoir about their saga called, A Father's Love.

Their update is now in the book, but to offer you a summary, this is what has happened. 

Sean coming home

                                                                                             

A former model, David is now a fishing boat charter captain and real estate agent and has become an advocate in helping others who have had children abducted to another country by one parent.  As he flew his son home two years ago, Goldman said he’d allow Sean to visit his grandparents, but that hasn’t happened.   Last March the boy’s maternal grandfather died of cancer, and Sean did not want to call his grandmother—he said he always felt too much pressure on the phone—but sent a card instead.

However, Sean seems to have made a real home in New Jersey.  Goldman’s taught him how to ride a bike, swing a baseball bat, and helped him with lots of homework.  He’s getting A’s and B’s.

In April Brazilian inspectors came to check on Sean and the condition of their home.  Of course Goldman passed, but I find the inspection itself an outrage.  What right do they have to interfere with this family after that mother committed the criminal act of kidnapping her own son?   Brazil then harbored this felon and then defended the step family, forcing the Goldmans to remain apart and continue suffering emotional and financial duress.   It wasn't until Hilary Clinton and President Obama himself stepped in, that the boy was finally released.  While in Goldmans' home, David presented the Brazilian authorities a letter from parents from six countries whose children have allegedly been abducted to their country.   To date, no one else has been freed.

But the Goldmans themselves are great.   It’s Christmas now, and everything’s bright and shining and blinking with store-bought lights. 

So Merry Christmas, David and Sean, and may you celebrate a hundred more.