I posted this in reply to another blog...but felt it needed it's own topic here...
Didn't actually realize the full extent of the damage until I began to write the following:

I have no advice...only commiseration.

My late husband had two children from his first marriage.
Their mother took them back to her home state prior to filing for divorce in 1994.
(We married in 1998)
Despite numerous court orders in two states, judicial warnings levied at the bio-mother and legal fees which we could ill afford...
My Darling Husband died in September 2005...
After five years on the heart-transplant list...
Waiting for a call that never came.

He was never allowed, by their mother...to set eyes upon his own children ever again.

The courts did nothing but garnish his pay until the day he died.
And then advised his ex how she could get death benefits for the kids.

Now those children are both adults...and they will never know their father's version of events, only her poison.

They'll never know how he fought for them,
fought to know them,
begged the courts to let him see them...just once...

They'll never know that we used to send them presents,
plane tickets
and cards...which all came back unopened.

They'll just never know...