I have no words to express the tragedy...

In my journey so far as a mother I've realized that there are LOTS of other things besides my philosophy of parenting that have been affected by Anna's arrival. Not the least of these things is the large amounts of compassion I feel for any child that is suffering. While this blog has mainly been about our family, I feel a change in the wind and will be adding more of my own thoughts to the blogroll mixed in among Anna's amazing accomplishments. So, on that note, here is today's thought on a recent news story...

On my way home from a meeting at school today I had the radio going in the background. I managed to just catch the tail end of a story about officials finding a four year old little boy in a garbage bag who had been beaten to death. I thought that was bad enough. Later in the evening I learned the whole story. I'm not going to go into the details because I can't fathom what would bring a person to do this to a child but for those of you who want to read the actual news article click here.

Hearing the story and the brutality that this little boy endured before his life ended just sickens me. What kind of society do we have where this happens to little ones? I know there are more stories than can be told of abuse to children but I think what really frightened me about this one was that the mother used her own children to help hold down this little boy (who apparently was her cousin) while she was beating him. Isn't it bad enough that they had to watch that happen, much less be a part of it? The other thing that I just don't understand is that afterwards the woman was afraid she was going to get into trouble and so she hid the body and claimed he had been abducted. Did she feel remorse for what she had done or did she simply realize she had gone too far and was going to get into trouble?

I am simply speechless about the whole thing and I just held Anna a little tighter tonight as I got her ready for bed and prayed that those who reach such a place with the children that they have in their care will have the sense to get help before their anger becomes destructive.

While this all sounds a bit rantish, let this be an encouragement to all of us with children in our lives to slow down, take a deep breath and above all remember to tell them just how special they are not just with our words but with our love.