An Innocent Lost

An Innocent Lost

A child’s ability to trust and hope are so important to their innocence, and yet like so many other important things they are not treated with the care necessary to keep them alive. An innocent, trusting child will walk up to anyone on the street and believe they cannot nor will never hurt them in any way. Unfortunately, all too often that part of them gets pulverized into dust. Our parents try to teach us there are no monsters, trying to protect us from the ugly truths that life holds. They never really lie to us, there are no monsters under our beds or hiding in our closets. Tragically some children are forced to face the appalling truths, fiends do exist and they look just like people. I was one that had to grow up much too soon and face the facts of those monsters, I learned the worst truth possible, and like a glass globe that is dropped, my world was shattered into a million pieces as the answers to my fears were delivered in anger. My entire self was dismembered, and for too long those horrors had complete control.
Today was just like any other summer day when my mom took me to my babysitter’s (Bonnie) house, except for the fact of the rain falling in great sheets, and even in the early morning hours it almost seemed to be getting dark. Until that is, the lightning flashed across the sky illuminating everything in it harsh light, then the thunder rumbled all around us roaring in our ears and shaking my entire little world. “Momma, are Penny and Renee coming home soon? I’m getting bored playing alone and Penny is the only one that can make my puppet (actually it was a marionette) do and say anything.” I had been pestering her for the last three weeks since my two best friends had just disappeared one night walking to the Bi-Rite two blocks from our houses.
“Yes sweetheart, they will be home soon,” she sounded kind of funny and when I looked, she had a tear running down her cheek.
Just as I was about to ask why, we had pulled up in front of Bonnie’s home. I quickly grabbed my stuff, jumped over the river flowing down the gutters, and made the mad dash to the house with my mom right behind me. I took my jacket off and was able to smell the fresh, clean scent of the rain with a little ozone spicing it up. Then my friend Rhett told me even the two of us, the senior citizens at seven years old, were stuck inside with the rest of the kids unless the storm ended.
I was about to start pestering Bonnie about the outside privileges but couldn’t say a word as I saw my mom and Bonnie whispering in the kitchen. My mother was crying and they were both looking at me. She quickly wiped the tears away when she realized I was watching. When she had pulled herself together she came over like she normally did, “I love you sweetheart, behave and stay inside, I’ll be here around five to pick you up.” Before I could say a word she was out the door headed to work. I looked at Bonnie but she shook her head and went into the kitchen.
Rhett and I started plotting what we were going to do all day imprisoned in the house. We managed to keep ourselves entertained playing Candy Land and Slap Jack. We were finally granted a reprieve right before lunch so we could go feed the horny toads we had caught the week before. We didn’t “dilly dally” as Bonnie would say, since Bonnie was right up there with my mom when it came to cooking. After we ate everything on our plates Bonnie gave us each a piece of fresh hot banana bread, with real butter slathered on it melting and dripping to the plate, each bite just melting in our mouths. The best part of being the two oldest was being able to convince her we needed two pieces to keep our growing bodies nourished.
After lunch was naptime, mandatory for the little ones and voluntary for me and Rhett. Bonnie just asked us to be a little quiet so we didn’t wake up the babies. So we got to watch cartoons while they were all the young ones were snoozing. We started getting bored about an hour later. Therefore, we started playing Slap Jack again.
Unfortunately, we should have opted for the nap too because with all the energy stored up from being stuck inside and running out of new things to keep us busy, we started to argue about the game. He accused me of cheating at Slap Jack and I said he was just a jerk and it just went downhill from there. After a few minutes of arguing back and forth I really got mad at him and informed him, “I can’t wait until Penny and Renee get home, they make games more fun than you do, and they don’t get mad when I win the game.”
I had been talking about them non-stop since they had gone missing. We had done everything together. The only reason I had not gone with them was I had been grounded because I didn’t clean my room. I am sure Rhett did not realize until it was too late that his retort to my rant was going to shatter everything I held dear. And out of the blue he screamed, “They’re never coming back stupid, it was on the news, they found them last night tied and gagged with duct tape. After he was done with them he strangled them and threw them out like trash.” It took more than a few seconds for it to sink in and register what he had said. I gaped at him until it hit home, and then I lost it. He just stood there as every bit of color drained from my face. I started crying as I started screaming in anguish, “You’re lying they’re coming back, you are lying!” hitting him with every word.
Everyone swore I had to have blacked out but I can still see the torment on his face and here his words very clearly to this day. As he stood there withstanding every blow whispering to me, “ I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!” I collapsed in a heap suddenly, all of my energy involved with the heart-rending sobs. Bonnie picked me up and carried me to her daughter’s room and laid me on the bed. They could not get me to look at or respond to anyone as I lay there saturating the pillow with the tears streaming down my face.
The next thing I knew my mom was there and I looked at her with the tears still falling down my face, “Please tell me he’s lying Momma, tell me they are waiting for me to get home so they can tell me about their adventure!”
“I’m sorry baby, he’s telling the truth, and they are gone.” She whispered in my ear her tears mixing with mine as we cried silently for a few minutes. She picked me up and carried me down the hallway where Bonnie and Rhett were standing waiting for us. “I’m so sorry I didn’t even think he knew and never believed him capable of doing that even while they argued back and forth.” Bonnie told my mom. “It’s okay, they never should have put it on the news before her loved ones were told face to face. Her dad learned it on TV, and I guess he went kind of crazy on the guards, they have him sedated and on suicide watch. All because some reporter has any sense of compassion,” my mom soothed. Rhett wouldn’t look at my mom or Bonnie, he kept looking me in the eyes and quietly stated, ”I should not have told you especially while we were fighting, I’m so sorry!”
At one point I remember my mom making me talk to a priest about death. Other than that everything is just a fuzzy mess. I was completely different and would not even look at or speak to even acquaintances of my parents. I started becoming a bookworm and to this day, a good book is soothing after a stressful day. During my self-imposed seclusion, I read a lot of Stephen King and Dean Koontz, books most people felt were to mature for a seven year old to be reading. My life was now filled with doubt and I let go of hope the day they put Penny and Renee in the ground side by side. I searched for answers and reasons for many years, and one day I came across something a guy named Marty Thompson had said, “Your death shaped me, but it is YOUR LIFE that changed me for the better. It is for that simple reason, your death will Never overshadow your life.” It had finally sunk in that I had no idea what kind of person I would be today, without yesterdays tragedies. Moreover, I was dishonoring their lives by allowing that instance to cloud the rest of my existence in darkness and pain.
Innocence is so very important to childhood, but for that innocence to stand a chance for as long as possible, they need to be able to trust in someone and hope there is still good in the world. The best thing a parent can do if tragedy strikes is to tell your children the truth. Let them know you will be there to stand between them and the real monsters of this world, for as long as possible. Make sure you tell them things that will have great impacts on their lives as soon as possible before someone else flings the words at them in anger. All too often those words could very well pulverize their trust and hope, propelling it to the four winds. I will stop now leaving you with the words of J.K. Rowling from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, “Always the innocent are the first victims…. So it has been for ages past, so it is now.”