cracks and fissures

M and I walked merrily into her classroom the other day and as usual, her little posse ran up for the usual viewing and cooing. After a minute all but one girl dance away and she looks up at me and says My mommy hit me between my legs really hard.

So I bend down and look her in the eye. Does it still hurt? She shakes her head no. Well babe, I am so sorry to hear that happened to you. Hitting is never okay. How are you feeling? Sad, she says and M says I'm sorry _____ hitting isn't nice. And looks at me expectantly. Heh.

This little girl is usually there when we arrive and still there when I return. Her hours are long and on the few occasions I've seen her mom she always seems stressed. I've heard her yell at her once, she's a single mom and I am sure her hands are full. I give her a hug and a bit stupified, I look over at the teacher as the kids run off to play.

Quietly I ask her if she heard what was just said. She says she didn't so I repeated it to her and the teacher says Oh. She's said that sort of thing before, but I've talked to her mom and her mom says she makes things up that aren't true. I look at her dumbfounded. And sometimes they say things because they ARE true and then one day they will stop saying them because no one is listening, I reply. She assures me she'll look into it but now I feel a little ill.

I've seen more abused kids in the course of my work than I care to remember. I've seen many good families torn apart by speculation and system failures and troubled families whose troubles got worse. I've seen babies wrenched from their mama's arms and I've seen kids grow up in the system worse off than before. I've also seen kids rescued from horrifying situations and the damage that was done before folks knew to help. None of it is easy and all of it is bad.

There are no good answers and as a sister I am hesitant and as a mother I have no choice. Goddamnit, I say over and over as I drive to work.

I call the Director from work and tell her what happened. I like this woman and she responds exactly the way she needs to and says she'll take it from here. The teacher's comments were news to her and very troubling and I could hear the frustration in her voice. I hung up feeling like I did what was necessary and the sadness stuck with me all day.

When I got home I told J what happened and how it made me feel. He said you know, this is weird because I never usually see her but when I picked M up from school today she was in the parking lot and the mom was yelling at her in a way that made me cringe.

And we both fell silent for a minute, my heart breaking for the little girl and for her mama too.

This was difficult to write, I struggled to bring it here so if it's disjointed I apologize. Today's the last day to send me your Just Posts at girlplustwoATyahooDOTcom. Our Roundtable will feature all of them on the 10th. It's not too late to join us.