INSIDE EDITION reports on the heart-wrenching story of a little boy at the center of a tug-of-war taking him from the only home he's ever known to live with his biological father.
It's a tug-of-love heartbreak. This five-year-old boy is being taken from the adoring grandmother he has lived with nearly all his life, and handed over to his biological father.
"I just want to stay home," he screams.
"I don't know if I'll ever be able to hold him again," his grandmother explains.
The tug-of-love over little Jared Slowinski began in 2008 when his mother, Heather, died in a car crash.
Jared's biological father, who had only learned that he had a son shortly before, sought custody.
During the two-year legal battle that followed, the little boy remained in the home where he grew up, with his 42-year-old grandmother, Nancy Parker, and her husband, Timothy.
Nancy claims the biological father had shown little interest in getting to know his son.
"There hasn't been a relationship over the years at all," said Nancy.
But a judge says the biological father "has a sincere desire to parent the child."
He ruled that "it is in Jared's best interest to place him in his biological father's custody."
On the day of the handover earlier this month, Jared weeps and clings to his heartbroken grandmother, calling her by a pet name, Mimi.
"Mimi, I love you," he said.
But Nancy realizes she has no choice but to obey the court order.
Her devastated husband, himself in tears, reluctantly has to pry his screaming grandson from Nancy's arms.
"The whole time he's screaming, please take me home," said Timothy.
Then, Jared and his father head out for Pennsylvania, 900 miles away, where he will begin his new life.
Patrick Sweeney, the boy's father, told INSIDE EDITION he wants his son to keep a close relationship with the family in Florida. In fact, the little boy has a daily phone conversation with them.
