My parents were in town this weekend (well...they have been in town pretty much EVERY weekend since Little Boy was born but that's a different story) and shared with me the story of a woman from Cincinnati who accidentally left her 11-month old daughter in the van in 90 degree heat while she was at work all day. Needless to say, I suppose, her daughter didn't survive.
I don't know if it's being a mother or the fact that Little Boy is just a month younger than this poor woman's little girl or what...but I could barely bear to hear the story. My dad was telling me about the woman's 911 call and how calm she sounded. Apparently she just said that she had forgotten her daughter in the van all day and just come out from work...that she hadn't touched her yet but that she knew she was gone. Just hearing her words and imagining that experience just ripped me up. I cannot fathom how that poor woman is dealing with herself right now.
Of course, I don't know her and I don't know her situation and I KNOW that there will be plenty of people out there to criticize and chastize her privately and publicly but I just can't imagine how she is dealing with her pain. I know she is imagining what her daughter must have gone through and replaying step by step how she might have avoided it. The regret and anguish must just be overwhelming.
Although I pray that it never happens to another soul, I truly believe that it could happen to any of us. We're all so anxiously running around from place to place in our lives...just barely stopping to breathe sometimes. Sometimes I drive right past the exit where I am supposed to get off and think, "How did I do that?" My head just isn't always in the game. The news reported that the woman who left her daughter in the van had changed preschools with her older child last week and was in a new routine. There's no doubt in my mind that just a little thing like a different route to work or a series of stops could cause this kind of tragedy.
Hearing her story was both a wake up call to me to "slow down" and a reminder of how much I cherish and adore Little Boy. I've worked so hard to make sure that I have time to enjoy him and don't pack my life so full of "chores" that I miss out on the precious time that I have with him. I could cry for this mother who has lost her baby girl...I hope that God will cradle and comfort both mother and daughter.
1 comment:
just found your blog (from MEP) and just read this entry. honestly, i could hardly get through your brief summary. i heard another story like this, about a dad, at rice university, where i used to go to school, and where i worked when my boy was a little baby. when i heard the story, i just lost it. i responded like you, and was really choked up for days and days over it.
motherhood has changed my responses to so many things...
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