Declaration of a Father

——————

I, TEGAN BURNS, am the Appellant/Petitioner/Father in this matter. I have personal knowledge of the facts stated herein except those facts taken on information and belief and to those facts I believe them to be true. If asked to testify hereto, I would be able to do so competently.

I submit this statement as a testament to how easily lofty promises of justice can mutate into a choreography of appearances, wherein grandiose principles eclipse the raw, human reality they are supposed to protect. Once, I imagined the law as a towering edifice of equity, meticulously designed to weigh wrong from right with unwavering neutrality. Yet, upon journeying through its corridors—where intricate precedents and venerable codes intersect—I discovered an institution that seems more enamored with its own formalities than with truth itself. Objections, motions, and rulings whirl about like a stylized dance, choreographed to reinforce the script of finality rather than to illuminate any deeper moral center.

Each petition I presented, each piece of evidence I dared to introduce, appeared to vanish behind veils of procedural correctness—details deemed inadmissible, contexts deemed irrelevant. The phrase “best interest of the child” reverberates in these hallways like a heraldic call, yet one can sense how often it amounts to a ritual incantation, its solemn echoes masking the quieter truths that might undermine foregone conclusions. Perhaps, in some rare corner of jurisprudence, a spark of humanity endures, reminding us that the law once aspired to protect the vulnerable and shield them from harm. In my experience, however, that protective instinct was overshadowed by labyrinthine codes, as though the entire structure clung to the illusion of its own perfection, unable to admit the possibility of error.

Thus, I have witnessed the paternal role reduced to the status of an afterthought—an inconvenient element to be contained rather than embraced. Genuine care and earnest pleas stand little chance against the system’s systematic reflexes, which appear to label dissenting voices as disruptive to the very order they claim to uphold. We speak of “due process,” yet the essence of what constitutes fairness shrivels when shaped only by rigid formality. To those privileged few who operate these levers with seasoned adeptness, it must seem perfectly natural that compassion can be itemized, that relationships can be codified, and that the intangible warmth of parenthood can be declared surplus to some preconceived design.

At times, it feels as though these very words are my only true armor, fleeting as they are. But I will not relinquish them. I speak because the truth is all I possess—my truth, unyielding in the face of accusations that paint me as something I am not. Though the system may brand me with convictions that defy my reality, I refuse to be cast into silence. For once we abandon our voices to the machinery of presumption, we abandon the very substance of who we are. If nothing else, let it be known that I stood here, articulating the quiet honesty that no verdict, opinion, or formal decree can fully extinguish.

And so, in the face of these unwavering pronouncements, I choose to remain firm in the conviction that authenticity can survive behind the scenes. There may come a time when the systems of law reflect not just the veneer of justice, but its beating heart. Until then, I will stand with my experiences and my conscience, an uninvited witness observing the discrepancy between exalted principles and how they unfold in daily life. My hope is that, one day, the guardians of this framework will reconcile their procedural grandeur with the quiet, unadorned needs of those it was built to serve.

And if these words stray from the typical shape of a formal declaration, consider it a testament to the sheer breadth of what they must hold: the human condition in a realm that too often prizes formula over feeling. I offer this reflection as a quiet defiance of conventions—an invocation of sincerity in a place where sincerity is seldom welcome.

I set these words to paper as an act of mortal faith, fully aware that time will one day return me to dust, yet I do so with a quiet, unwavering love reflected in my every breath. Let them vanish, if they must, into the chambers of the abyss, for I have never written them for the eyes of the judiciary. I write for you—a child soon to become a man. Like my own father, I have fought and failed, but my failures have been waged in good faith. Yet where he surrendered, I will continue on, because you will always be my son, and I will always be your father. I will keep working toward a future that stands free of our past burdens, hoping you inherit not our mistakes but the steadfast hope that carried us through them. Know that I never turned my back on you—because I never did. And know too that my love for you is not a mere sentiment, but a truth that endures in every beat of my heart.