Your next door neighbor invites you over for a cook out. You've played Frisbee with him and his kids and your kids, laughing and rolling in the grass.
A church brother shakes your hand, smiling and nodding, as he places his arm around his young son standing by his side.
A co-worker chats and banters with you, his feet propped on his desk in front of family photos of a smiling wife and three very young and happy children.
You pass around the turkey gravy and potatoes as you joke with your brothers and sisters and umpteen little kids around your parent's table filled with Thanksgiving goodies..
My heart aches with unbearable pain as I read the recent news article--
..police shoot and kill man as he beats and stomps toddler to death. It seems you can't pick up a paper or read a news article on the internet without reading the shocking stories of babies and tiny children being killed by friends or relatives. What makes these people commit such atrocities? Who are these murderers and where do they come from?
Does the killer truly believe the child is possessed by demons; or is it just a ruse to hide the fact that an uncontrollable
inner rage blocked out all sense of decency and humanity? Does he strike out because that was what he was taught by his father or mother? Is he able to hide and control the monster, and the coward, within from all but those too weak to fight back and have nowhere to run; nowhere to hide?
Who are these people? The neighbor next door? The parishioner that sits beside you on Sundays? The person who works across the hall from you and says good morning with such a pleasant smile? Your brother, sister-no, can't be. But they are. They are someone's brother, someone's neighbor; someone we think we know. Do we see it coming and ignore it or maybe just don't realize what we're seeing? Do we really want to get involved?
Who could hurt faces like these????
I can't help but wonder how so many people could have stopped and watched but
couldn't prevent that man from killing that baby!? There was no mention of a weapon; but I hope there was some plausible reason that no one could stop him until the policeman was forced to shoot him. I'm an old woman, but I think I could die before I would allow a baby to be brutally murdered-even by its own father.
I have a three-year-old grandson and was literally sick for a week after a three-year-old boy was killed in an auto accident just down the street from our home. The mother was driving while intoxicated; the child was not in a child seat. The mother's younger sister (also intoxicated), another passenger was also killed. Now the young mother has to live with the horror of killing her own baby and sister. Every time I pass that section of road, I picture the tiny body of that baby lying dead in the grass.
I have heard so many excuses behind child murders-it wouldn't stop crying'; it wouldn't eat its supper'; it wouldn't go to sleep'; she broke my glasses'; and the thirteen-year-old that was misbehaving so we tied him to a tree for eighteen hours'.
I wish I had an answer. I don't. But I truly believe God does and someday it will be revealed to all who seek it. I have stopped asking, "Why, God?" and started praying for something good to come to those little ones lost. I know there is a reason for all things. I pray for understanding and the wisdom to come to terms with the horror side of human nature and the driving
rage within.
May God help us all, as we can't seem to help ourselves.
Sandra E. Graham, author of
AMOS JAKEY and
NICOLINA now in print from American Book Publishing. Visit my website for purchase information.
http://www.sandragraham-articles-books.com
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