Baby Grace

The news of the two year old girl, whose body washed up on shore in a blue plastic box, in Galveston Bay last month, is sad. Her body has been identified, now, and she was from here, in Ohio. It seems that her mother met a man on the Internet, and moved to Texas to be with him. I started to say, "sad and shocking," when I began to write, but I have to be honest and admit that I was not shocked, and that is really sad. Such things have become such a common occurence, that when a child is missing, we expect the worst because that is usually the outcome...the worst.

I don't know what has happened to society. I don't know what has become of the respect for human life. I don't know what has caused people to look upon their children as nothing more than a hindrance, and something to be gotten rid of--for what? Convenience?

I don't understand how anyone could intentionally, physically, hurt another, much less, a helpless child. For every single one that we hear of being harmed, or killed, how many others are there, that no one knows about? When I think about the horror that these helpless innocents must have endured, it becomes almost too much to think about.

I remember when I was about fourteen years old, there was a couple who lived next door. They had a couple of children, one of them being a little girl, about two or three years old. I'm not sure, but I think she had been married before, and the children were from that marriage. I could hear the two of them arguing, and the thing that I remember most, was how she would scream and curse him, and the children. The little girl was like a scared little mouse, and whenever she would see me outside, she would hold her arms out to me, and say, "Take me," and I would pick her up, and hold her, of course.

One morning, very early, I heard the mother fussing, and yelling. I looked out, and saw the little girl standing at the edge of the stone wall which edged their yard, which was a level up from ours. It was very cold out, and she was standing there in her little nightie, holding her arms out, in the direction of our house, saying, "Take me! Baby, take me!" I went out, and she jumped down, into my arms. Her little body was shivering, and her skin was blue-mottled from the cold. I sat on my porch with her, wrapped her up in something,( I have forgotten what by now) and she snuggled as close as possible to me, as the yelling and cursing continued. In a few minutes, the door slams, and he is leaving, going fishing, and as he walks across the yard to his car, she screams at him, calling him a name, saying, "I hope you never come back! I hope I never see you again!" Unfortunately, that is exactly what happened. He never came back, and she never saw him, alive, again. He was fishing at a dam, and fell into the rough waters, and drowned.

I'm sure you must be wondering what any of this has to do with what I started out writing about..the little girl from Ohio, and how anyone can mistreat a child, but I guess in my mind, somehow, it is all connected. I know that the little neighbor girl must have been abused, because I saw the marks and bruises on her body, and besides that, she certainly was verbally abused. But why? Did the mother take the frustration with her husband out on the little girl? I'm sure that she never went to the extreme of inflicting deadly harm on her child, but I do wonder if it had been in today's society, if it would have been different, because it seems that there are less boundaries set today, on a personal level, despite all the laws in effect to prevent, and to punish such behavior.

I don't know the reasons why Baby Grace (as the Texas authorities named her) was murdered and disposed of like so much refuse, but from what I see on the news here, she did have a daddy and a grandmother who loved her, and their hearts are broken. There is never a good reason for a heart that is broken.