I Promise, Forever

I read about the local incident at Sam’s and the one at BK last week.

I talked to my kiddos about their Private Parts today.

When I read about these local perverts, I was appalled. Of course, why shouldn’t I be? These old, nasty men are preying on boys that are young enough to be their grandkids. I have to believe they have no conscience, they have no respect, no caring bone in their body. They just turned these boys’ and their families’ lives upside down. In one quick, thoughtless swoop they damaged these boys and the lives they knew.

One of them 15, probably on the verge of manhood and girlfriends and sports and high school and all the fun and getting into his own trouble that comes with that age. And now what? Will he wonder if girls in school will know? Will he be ashamed, shy, and reclusive? Will he have to face his attacker in court, in the papers, in the grocery store? Will he realize this is not the norm?

The other a THREE year old little boy, that for all we know threw a temper tantrum about wanting to go in the little boys’ bathroom because Mommy is a girl. That’s what my JP does. Tells me because he’s a boy he should go in Daddy’s bathroom. And now, this Mom has to salvage a little boy’s, and her own memory of this one moment in time where some sick bastard got his kicks looking at and touching a three year olds penis.

These are two local boys separated by a few miles and 12 years, yet linked through the headlines, forever. Two boys that will need to relearn how to trust, forever. Two boys with Moms that will have to live with what ifs, forever.  Two boys with Moms and the guilt that they couldn’t save their boys from everything, forever.

*******

I watched the Jaycee story this past weekend.

I talked to my kiddos about strangers today.

When I watched the Jaycee story, as a Mom, my thoughts kept turning towards her Mom. I cannot imagine how she survived those 18 years. To not know if her daughter was alive; if she remembers her; if she is healthy; if she is learning; if she is scared; if she is far away; if she is hurt; if she is in need of a doctor; if she is being fed; if she is suffering; to not know. Is that worse than knowing?

And to know that she has another, younger daughter that needs her attention; that is hurting too; that will now, herself, not have a normal childhood. What kind of a childhood could the sister of an abducted girl have? Would she grow up wondering if this girl, or that girl, could be her sister? Would she be allowed to be out of her mother’s sight at school, at sports, at friends’ houses? Should she? Could she? Would she grow up feeling guilty, or jealous, or lonely, or scared? Would she be forced to grow up fast just as Jaycee ended up growing up fast?

I decided to buy one of Jaycee’s necklaces. It was a symbol to her of her last taste of freedom that fateful day in 1991.

To me, it’s a symbol of the little things I will not take for granted with my children. I promise, with all my heart.