Feb. 13th, 2009

anastasiav: (Default)

Now I know my ABCs....
Originally uploaded by anastasiav
Evan sings his ABCs for you.

This was taken on Saturday. He's had a haircut since then - not sure if the haircut is an improvement, or not.
anastasiav: (Evan B&W)
Some of you know that I make a strong -- and stronger all the time -- effort to avoid stories of children in peril, because (for whatever reason) since E was born they have a very visceral effect on me.

Last night, while reading an article which should have been free of such nonsense, I stumbled across a very short (three sentence) description of the murder of a three year old boy by his mother (the crime took place in the mid-90's, in Chicago) which was written in such a way that you didn't realize what had happened until the last four or five words - which brought to me so powerful an image that I ... well, I threw up. It wasn't a graphic image - no detailed blow-by-blow descriptions of the crime. It was more the emotion of the moment (from the boy's perspective) and the love and trust in showed in his mother to the very end that got to me. (I'm trying not to write it out here lest I trigger the same emotions in other parents who read this journal.)

I wish - WISH - I had a better handle on what, exactly, about these stories sets me off. I wasn't abused as a child or an adult; I didn't witness abuse. My own son is beautiful and loved and I have no fear that any family member (blood or chosen) will abuse him. In a lot of ways, these types of stories - the mentally ill mothers and the dead children - are about as far from my personal experience as you can possibly get.

And yet there I was, throwing up in the bathroom.

And here I am now, unable to get the mental image of this small boy and his last moments out of my head.

I understand why people believe in an afterlife. They want to believe that this little boy is living on in peace and love with angel wings, existing for all eternity with all the comfort and security he never had in his three years of life. But, see, I don't believe that. I wonder if that fact -- my inability to believe that the eternal afterlife exists in any meaningful way -- is part of what makes these stories harder to bear for me. But if that were true, wouldn't stories of adults being tortured and killed have the same effect on me? Because they don't.

About five minutes after the throwing up part, E and his dad came home from the store, and E had an armful of Irises for me. "These are for you, Mamma!" and then he handed me the flowers and wrapped his arms tight around my neck and said "I love you, Mamma, I love you."

I just fail to understand how anyone can inflict such pain on these small, loving, trusting creatures. And, worse, I feel so helpless. With just about any other "social issue" there is something you can do. With abuse like this - nothing. It happens in secret. Really the only action I could take would to be becoming a foster parent and trying to help children who escape abuse, but that simply isn't an option for our family right now. Short of having a time machine, there is not a single thing I can do to change the lives of abused children in America. And it eats at me.

My apologies if this is all too heavy for a Friday morning. I'm hoping that by writing about it I'll be able to get it all out of my head, or that one of you will have some useful suggestion. Because this child is going to stay in my mind with me all day now. That's good, in a way, I guess, because one really lives only so long as one isn't forgotten. But its painful for me in a way that I can't really describe. And I'd like to be a little less painful, if possible.
anastasiav: (Carcassonne)
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