I knew it was getting close to my daughter's two-week summer vacation with me, and I knew there’d be questions about what to pack, where we'd be going, etc., but when I answered this call, I wasn’t expecting to hear a crying and panicked daughter. I asked, "What’s wrong?"
"Mom told me to pack all my shit because I wasn’t coming back!" she cried into the phone.
Barely able to speak between sobs, she continued, "Will you let me live with you? I don't want to be homeless!"
Imagine being a teenager and feeling so unloved that you feared you’d be homeless.
While there had been zero discussion between her mother and me about this change in custody, I can honestly say I was the least bit surprised. I responded to my daughter as calmly as I possibly could, "Of course you can, Sweetheart. It will be a little crowded at first, and you’ll have to sleep on the couch until we can find a bigger place, but we’ll figure it all out."
About a week later, an SUV pulled up outside my condo, and it was unceremoniously unpacked, the boxes containing my daughter's worldly possessions set everywhere. No conversations, just a dump and run. My heart broke seeing my daughter treated like she was something to be disposed of.
The following Monday, I got a call from her school’s guidance counselor verifying that I had custody. I told her the sequence of events, and after a moment of silence, I heard an audible sigh. She then asked which school I wanted the records sent to, so I told her. While she was looking it up, she told me her school was on the verge of issuing an arrest warrant for truancy, but if I had custody, they would drop the matter. I asked her to send me a letter stating that, or else I wouldn’t have a legal leg to stand on. She agreed, and four days later, the letter (sent certified) was in my hands, and clearly stated what we had discussed.
Turns out, my daughter had only attended some 30-odd days of classes the entire school year. Oof!
The amazing, fun, confident girl I knew was gone. It was going to take work to get her back on solid ground. I was going to run the same playbook that had worked with my other kids: school, church, sports, and volunteering in the community (a requirement for graduation where we lived).
While I had the letter and the school had received her records, I was having some difficulty getting the necessary medical records to complete her enrollment. A week later, everything was in hand, and enrollment was in the books! The next big hurdle was getting her enrolled in CCD (Sunday School, for you non-Catholics). I called the parish and the recorded greeting reminded me there was a Sacrament of Reconciliation (Confessions, for you non-Catholics) that Thursday, so I put that on our family schedule.
Turns out that she’d not been to church in several years and wasn’t sure she even remembered how to "confess her sins." I reassured her as best I could, but she was completely stressed out over it. I decided the best approach was to skip Confession and attend the next Sunday Mass so she could get the lay of the land. My thinking was that a little familiarity would bring her a lot of comfort.
Father’s Day was quickly approaching, so I put the Sacrament of Reconciliation back on the calendar for the Thursday before Father’s Day. It was generally from 5:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. Surprisingly, I didn’t get much pushback this time. We showed up and found a spot in the pews.
For those who don’t know, there’s an unspoken set of rules for where to sit that allows people to confess in the order they arrived, so, following the rules, we sat in a different place than where we normally sat for mass. Oddly enough, this pew was right outside the confessional. 
We slid into the empty pew with her older brother going in first (therefore the last of us to confess), my daughter slid in next (she'd go second), and then me (the first to go). When it was my time to confess, I entered the confessional, carefully closing the door behind me, and sat in the chair. After a moment, the panel slid open, and I began by saying, "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned."
I proceeded to confess my sins. Now, anyone who knows me (or has read any of my other stories) knows that I have been a bit of a rebel and misfit. I have been in my fair share of trouble, and Lord knows, having an affair is certainly a sin. However, since my kids were born, I had really cleaned up my act. So much so that I attended Mass almost daily, worked out 5 days a week, had quit smoking, didn't do drugs, and rarely had a sip of wine. I was very much on the straight and narrow. All of that means I didn’t have much to confess, but, because no one is without sin, I was always honest, even about my "impure thoughts." The priest listened and gave me my penance: Two Our Fathers and two Hail Marys, which any Catholic will tell you is just a slap on the wrist. We chatted for just a moment, and then I was sent on my way.
Well, almost sent on my way!
Just as the door to the confessional was about to close behind me, the priest called me back in. I dutifully returned, retook my seat in the chair, and was asked some very important questions. I was again released, and as I exited the confessional, my kids were kneeling in the pew quietly giggling, and a few other people were looking at me and smirking. As I sat down, my daughter climbed past me for her turn, and the oldest looked at me and, while chuckling, said, "Only you would get called back in!" This made my daughter laugh, and there were some chuckles from folks nearby.
I was amused at how it must have looked to any onlooker… Yep! I was a baaad bad boy!
Over the years, the kids enjoyed teasing me about being the only person to ever get called BACK into the confessional! It was always pretty funny. They said things like, "Don’t go to confession with Dad, it takes twice as long because he gets called back for a redo!" or "You know you’ve been good when you don’t get called back in… like Dad did!"
While I have told a few of my closest friends this story, I never did tell the kids why I was called back in. So let me share this part with you… to confess my sin if you will.
After my confession, I told the priest that my daughter had recently come to live with me and had not been to confession in several years, and that she was scared to death to come in here. He asked if she had been baptized Catholic (she had), and if she had been Confirmed (she had), and if she had received her First Holy Communion (she had). He said, "No problem, it will be okay, I’ll get her through it with grace and compassion."
And now we get to the truth.
I was called back in because the priest didn’t know who she was or what she looked like. I described her and gave him her name. He had a few more quick questions, and that was it.
So my friends, my great sin was to gently and quietly make sure that my daughter had an easy go of her first confession in years, to lovingly pave her way to reconcile with God.
Now that this sin of fatherly love has been confessed, please don't judge me too harshly, but feel free to snicker and chuckle till your heart's content.