I’m actually scared to turn on the news or open my
Washington Post.
I’m scared that there is going to be a report that the
“body” of young Relisha Rudd has been found. Not the “person” or the “child,”
but the “body.”
Perhaps if you don’t live in the DC-Metro area, you haven’t
heard of this case, I’m not sure how wide-spread it is. But in late February, the mother let her
8-year old daughter leave the homeless shelter with a janitor that had been
giving her child gifts. She was finally
reported missing almost a month later, after the janitor’s wife had been found
shot dead in an area hotel.
* Ding * Ding * Ding *
When a grown-man who is not related to you (or even related
to you) nor is even really your own friend offers your child, your daughter,
gifts – that’s a big red flag and warning bells signaling “danger!” A little too much, a little too
scary-stranger? Maybe. But I don’t think so.
We’ve heard of the mother-bear instinct, we’ve seen it with dogs and
their puppies. You get to close and they will bite off your hand. Because that
is supposed to be a mother’s natural instinct – protect your child. Relisha’s mother didn’t do that. She let this man continue to give her child
things and then one day, she handed her baby over to this man to take away with
him. And when he didn’t bring her back
the next day or the day after that or the day after that, she didn’t tell anybody.
So, in my CSI/SVU watching mind, that tells me she knew that
she was wrong in giving this man her daughter or she didn’t expect him to bring
her back because of some deal they struck. My maternal brain cells are trying
to block thinking about what a mother would, could, has traded for her child.
How do you take the flesh and blood from your own body and hand it over to
someone else? What could be worth that trade?
So, yes, without judge nor jury, I am single-mindedly
determining the mom GUILTY. There’s
probably some technical, legal terms, but bottom line she is GUILTY of not
protecting her child.
How and when did the police get involved? When the girl didn’t show up to school for an
accumulated 30 days, social welfare was notified and some days later the police
were called in. And this is where more
finger pointing occurs. The mom lied to
everybody about where her daughter was and why and with whom, but we’ve already
determined she’s guilty. Who else dropped the ball? Hindsight is 20/20 as they say, but reading
over the trail of events over this girl’s lifetime in a recent Post article, it
seems that her life was basically a game of Hot Potato. It was thrown around,
dropped, and kicked to the next person her entire life.
I don’t live in DC and I don’t vote in DC. But if I did, I’d
want to know what a new Mayor will do to better protect the children of that
city. Maybe when kids are found abused
and in unhealthy living conditions, the city can do more than write a report.
Maybe schools can check up on a kid before they’ve missed a month of school.
Maybe the folks at the homeless shelter could provide better security for their
residents or screen their employees better. Maybe some more folks could act like they care about a
little, defenseless brown girl.
Because our primary responsibility, duty, requirement as mothers, fathers, parents, members of a society - is to protect our children. They're depending on us for their life.
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