Death of a dad's dreams

Kamloops This Week
February 5, 2003
By Dale Bass

Mark Dexel had plenty of dreams.

He had recently taken up painting, with 15 canvasses completed.

He was in a new relationship his friend, Todd Eckert, described as happy.

He had a burgeoning business making custom log furniture and, with his girlfriend [Mark's girlfriend], was making plans to open a store on the Yellowhead Highway to sell his work.

He had five young children � and this is where the dream begins to shatter, coming to an end, Eckert says, when Dexel hung himself in a Kamloops motel last month.

His death on Jan. 23 was the one-year anniversary of the last time he saw his two-year-old son [Mark's son], the only child he was not allowed to see. Dexel was supposed to go to court on Jan. 29, one of an ongoing series of appearances in his quest to have access to his son, a campaign for which he saw no successful ending.

�I stand no chance of ever seeing [Mark's son] and this is too much for me,� Dexel wrote in one of two suicide notes he left for his sister.

Eckert says his friend�s death �could have been prevented if the government would do something about this divorce racket and recognize the human birthright to have access to both parents.�

He calls Dexel a �victim� of a judicial system that fails to consider access to children to be as important as maintenance payments. For example, he cites Alberta as the only province to enforce access orders, decrying British Columbia for its refusal to follow suit.

Eckert, Parent and Child Advocacy Coalition president, says the suicide rate increases twofold for fathers after divorce or separation. In adversarial custody disputes, mothers prevail in about 80 per cent of cases, he adds, but that doesn�t mean fathers are the other 20 per cent.

�That includes children who are made wards of the court, who go to other family members, to grandparents; fathers are actually five or six per cent.�

Eckert says Dexel�s family is torn by his suicide. His father, a minister, believes taking one�s own life to be wrong but the family believes people need to know the �incredible pain these laws are creating.�

Dexel left directions his ashes be distributed in the waterfall at Marble Canyon, a task his father and brother will take on when the weather improves, Eckert says.

He left one more direction in his note: �Try to see my son someday.�

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