I have another pair of sneakers I would like to send you to remind you of the little girls in Texas who deserve a voice.
Good address?
Sincerely,
Elea Lee
Dear Senator Wendy Davis,
Reply
Pink Sneakers (never worn)
Image
Where is Brookelyn Farthing?
The report gives little information–a young woman, Brookelyn Farthing, has not been seen since a fire in the house where she was staying.
As with so many of these stories the answers are out there somewhere with someone’s little girl.
But she was 18! You will say–hardly a little girl?
Our beloved daughters are always
Our little girls.
Help find Brookelyn.
Little Pink Sneakers
Let me say this straight off–I am a disenfranchised Texan. This happened several years ago at the end of a long and fruitless battle to keep children safe from identified sex offenders.
But last night helped.
I applaud every elected official who stood up for children’s rights in Texas last night.
Funny how the national press has focused on Senator Davis’ shoes. I focus on Ernest Hemingway’s. I have always loved the story of the six-word short story, not so much because it had to be Papa who told it, but because my heart has been broken more than once by the shoes never worn by babies–babies I lost to miscarriages or adoptions. I miss the children who should have worn the shoes.
Over 84 thousand babies lost their lives last year in Texas. Too many empty pink sneakers.
If you think that is a tragedy there is something you can do–
Trace the outline of a pair of baby shoes on a piece of paper and send it to Ms. Davis.
A six-word story is amazing. A picture is worth a thousand words. But the world entire is in the eyes of a child.
Speak for those who have been silenced.
All Those Tiny Pink Sneakers
Scattered in the chaos of my house there are pictures of my children–very small, grainy images of each of them when they were smaller than a dollar bill.
Small, but priceless.
So why would requiring a woman to see pictures of her baby be such a big deal?. Because unlike me, some women don’t treasure these reminders of their tiny children.
The truth is that in many countries including the United States sonogram is already a part of the abortion decision. Women wait until the gender of their developing child is evident in the picture and then they terminate the little girl.
Thank you, Ms. Davis, for the graphic reminder of all we are losing.
And the eroding rights of women–especially the really small ones. Here in Texas and all over.
No Justice for Jada
Another story you don’t want to read–an innocent child abused to death by drug addicts but the court vacates a legitimate sentence of murder because they do not see sufficient intentionality?
Are they crazy?
Nope.
In fact, they are being highly pragmatic. They are reflecting the value of a single child’s life in our culture. How much is Jada’s suffering and death and the lies told to cover her murder worth to you?
Make some noise. Justice for Jada.
What I remember
My father was a southerner of the same generation as Ms. Deen. He did not speak directly to the question of the “n” word and his culture. As a child I knew these stories:
His father owned a hardware store. He was taught to call people “sir” and “ma’am” and so he did so until his father told him these terms did not apply to the African American customers who came to the store.
Why? My father wondered. He never, as long as I knew him, treated anyone with partiality. He was not convinced by prejudice and racism. Always fair at all things except cards–in which case the man played to win.
Or the stories of the black women who raised him. They loved him, put up with him, nurtured him, and gave him his taste for butter on rice and pinto beans. A taste that is sewn into who we are and what we call home.
And then there was Tav–Octavia, the subject of the most explosive argument I remember between my father and his parents.
They objected to loans she got from the government to renovate her shack. She was their employee. If they had paid her a living wage then she could have afforded her own linoleum and shingles.
Hardly luxuries.
But this last story is mine: I was 4 or 5 at most and a relative repeated a familiar rhyme that often has the word “tiger” in it. Only she used the n word. I did not know at first what it meant.
My parents (Paula Deen’s age and no angels) explained that it was a derogatory term we did not use.
If you can teach a 5 year old that some words are painfully off-limits, well…you can teach just about anyone.
Trick is to get’em to understand God sees us all the same–His beautiful children.
Cherish Perrywinkle
From the beginning her name was spelled wrong–Charish, Peri- and Perri all were thrown into the horrifying chronology of a little girl taken and murdered.
I first saw “Charish Periwinkle” and have not changed it on my original post. I have not edited that post for several reasons–it reflects the tumult of hours in which there was a report, an Amber alert, a traffic stop, an arrest, a missing child, and then a confirmed tragedy.
If you go back a bit you might say the tragedy started May 31, the day Donald Smith was released from jail–seemingly without restrictions. Or more than a year before, when a court of law sentenced him very lightly for yet another egregious felony after over 30 years of dangerous aggressions toward young children.
The story says nothing about how the state or the country expected this predatory man to avoid his dark actions.
No one but his neighbors and his victims really cared about that.
And yet now we know what should have been addressed before–he was always capable of monstrous harm.
And now we have just a name–Cherish means to greatly love, prize, or esteem and yet she was not cherished by the man who treated her like a cast-off rag doll.
And I still maintain–if we cherish our children we will do something to ensure that every child is safe–at a dollar store, a Walmart, a McDonalds–each symbols of our drive-by, fast-food culture.
Now symbols of everything that can go wrong in the life of a dear little girl named after love and flowers.
Do you care about Charish Periwinkle?
The story is unbearable. You want to look away. Not read it. Unthink it. Yell to the hapless mother–if he fricking wants to buy the kid a snack he can bring it to her in a to-go bag!!!!
You want to just write the story off–idiot mother!
I say this because I was the idiot mother. Now I am the nearly-friendless mother. I don’t have a social life because too often I have told the story of how I trusted an honor roll high schooler with my kids and it cost us.
I want to make a bet with you–
If you have kids you trust them around someone you shouldn’t. Whether you want to face it or not: we all know pedophiles.
They don’t all resort to murder, but they all kill. They kill innocence and communities and faith.
Whatcha gonna do about it? Go get a snow cone? Read about North West?
How about not calming down? How about making some noise? If the flipping NSA can troll the net for terrorists shouldn’t they throw a few tax dollars at keeping a 9 year old safe from the bad guys they already know about?
Joe Stalin’s Sunday School Teacher
When Lee Harvey Oswald was 14 he read a pamphlet denouncing the Rosenbergs’ execution. He reported later that it was this pamphlet that stirred his interest in communism.
You could argue that the Rosenberg execution was responsible for the murder of JFK.
I used to have a theory that there is always someone who stands in the path of evil. I called this theory “Joseph Stalin’s Sunday school teacher” because I had read that he had been exposed to Christian education when he was young.
I thought–what if one of his teachers had been able to show him Jesus? What if the love of God had changed his life when he was still young?
Yes. I know. It did not play out that way. And yet I believe still in the dangerous power of interventionist love.
And the even more dangerous power of fear. Love is nothing if not courageous.
Carrying Light 