Clowns and Monsters

I started this blog to write about things that I feel strongly about. This is a departure from my normal entries but it is something that has affected me profoundly over the last few weeks. It contains graphic images and may not be suitable for everyone.

Clowns and monsters.

The two most common fears of small children.

I suppose you could include Santa in that mix, come holiday time – if Liam’s reaction was typical of the average kid’s.

I always imagined the monsters to have fangs and talons and to come after you in the dark. My poor mother had to lay down with me to go to sleep for years and that was even with my Kermit the Frog nightlight.

It’s been a long time since the image of Frankenstein or Dracula invaded my R.E.M. sleep. But last night I woke up nearly screaming - twice.

It wasn’t the monsters of my childhood that were out to get me. It was something more sinister. Something that disturbed me more than I could imagine.

You see, yesterday was the beginning of the 1st degree murder trial of a man named Rodney Miller. He pleaded guilty to stabbing his infant son through the heart when his girlfriend threatened to commit suicide if he didn’t kill the baby.

The local radio stations carried synopses of his confession where he described how he killed the baby. He said he “stabbed the baby’s heart and felt him go limp in his arms and that’s how he knew he was dead.”

Just like that.

And just like that something inside me screamed. Something from my nightmares reached out and wrapped it’s cold hands around my spine. And I instinctively reached for my own infant.

I smelled her baby smell. I felt her warm weight in my arms. I felt her body next to my chest and I cried.

If these two didn’t want a baby why not just drop it off at a hospital? Why not call Social Services? Heck, why not just put it in a gym bag and leave it in the mall where someone would find it?

There are thousands of families in this country that would have taken that baby and loved him and raised him and adored him for their entire lives – so pretending there was no other option is ridiculous.

He should have handed his girlfriend a rope and told her to have a ball. Instead he did something that, I hope, haunts his dreams every night like it haunted mine tonight.

They were his parents! They were supposed to love him unconditionally! And if they couldn’t provide for him – they should have loved him at least enough to give him to someone who would.

I hope they rot! I hope they rot in the darkest, dankest part of the deepest dungeon that Corrections Canada can find until everyone that ever cared about them forgets them. Because that’s what they deserve.

That’s what all monsters deserve.