Heart of Stone

Somewhere in the Bible the Lord says, I will take your heart of stone and give you a heart for love alone. When it comes to my feelings about my mother, and my heart of stone concerning her, God has his work cut out for him.

In our community recently, a baby was abused and beaten over 2 days and finally died. He was 7 months old. The boyfriend killed him, and the mother neglected him. She came home from work to find her baby with 2 black eyes and a split lip and a bruised head, and did she take him for medical help? No. She took him shopping. She knew the boyfriend had perpetrated those grievous injuries on that baby, and what did she do? Let him babysit her son again the next day. By the time she got home that night the baby was unconscious and in cardiac arrest. She took him to the hospital that time, where he was resuscitated, but was already brain dead. A ventilator kept him alive through the next day while the family wailed and prayed and had the baby baptized and then finally the ventilator was shut off and the baby died.

I went to that baby's funeral. I know the family of the mother. I know the mother. She was arrested, and she was bailed out. She has subsequently been charged with 2 counts of manslaughter, among other charges of neglect and endangerment, 2 counts for the 2 days she neglected to get her baby care while the boyfriend continued to choke and pummel and bite him. Plenty of people I know well are making excuses for her. I am not able to make excuses for her. She failed to protect her baby. Period. I sat there at that funeral--even seen a baby's coffin, by the way? Not very big. Kind of the size of a large cooler, it sat atop our communion table. Anyway, I sat there listening to the pastor say how much this baby was loved, and I felt sheer white rage. People around me sobbed and cried and I was rigid with anger.

I have zero tolerance for child abuse, and zero tolerance for adults who fail to protect children, especially their own. And I know why: because my mother failed to protect me. That fact has made me an angry she-bear when it comes to the protection of the very small and helpless. The mother of this baby, from what she told police at the time, was more concerned with the welfare of her boyfriend, who she also says wasn't actually her boyfriend because her real boyfriend, the baby's father, is currently in prison.

That baby, sadly and aptly enough, was buried in the dusk, on a hillside, in the cold. One basket of flowers marks the spot. I visited it the morning after the burial. It was snowing and sleeting at the time, it was dim and grey. Sadder images could not be used in a poem, images of the beaten-to-death baby's grave in the cold and the half-dark. I do believe that baby is safe and warm now, in God's loving arms.

And no, my mother's neglect did not lead to my death. To mental illness and suicidal tendencies and a life long struggle to stay healthy, but not to my death. It has led to me knowing what I know: we must protect the small and the helpless, we simply must. No excuses.

And therein resides my heart of stone.

Until next time, I remain, your friend, Rozenkraai