Friday, December 19, 2008

My Sadness for Caylee Anthony

From the day Caylee Anthony’s "missing person" report was filed in July, I knew she was dead.

Oh how I hoped I was wrong. Hoped that Casey had given, or even sold, her to someone whose heart longed for the unattainable... someone who desperately wanted to raise a child but was not so blessed.

My husband thinks I’m obsessed - TIVOing Nancy Grace and reading up on the case on-line. It's just a "Mommie" thing. Or perhaps it's just a "Fia" thing.

Perhaps I feel connected because I was pregnant with Collin at the same time Casey was carrying Caylee. Collin and Caylee were born exactly one week apart. But I have to wonder if we have more in common.

How did Casey feel when her stick test said "positive"?? I'm sure her pregnancy was nearly as big a surprise to her as mine was to me. I know my emotions ranged from shock and hyperventilation to the untold joy that such an unfathomable miracle would happen to me. I had worked to conceive for three years. Shots, pills, ultrasounds, money... I'd finally given up and gone back on the pill for medical reasons.

Money was very tight due to Guy's recent and unplanned job changes. I conceded and accepted a new position - but not before the finances made me choose between my pills or another medication. I chose the other medication because the chances of me conceiving without medical intervention were "slim to none". Ten days into my new job - "Slim" announced his impending arrival.

Did Casey rush to announce the news to the entire world? Or did she hide the fact under her "fat" clothes for as long as possible? Did she experience awe and joy when she felt Caylee moving about inside her? Or did she complain about being fat, just "praying" for it all to end soon? Was she excited as her due-date approached? Did she nest? Did she love the warmth and yummy smell of her cuddly newborn? Or did she pass her off to "grandma" as often as possible?

I cannot look at photos/videos of Caylee without thinking of my son in the same instant. Every time Collin achieves a new milestone, I remember that Caylee will never "be potty trained", dress herself, tell jokes...

Therefore, I resolve to find joy in the everyday things of my children. Normally rambunctious Collin resorts to whispering the truth when he knows he's in "big big trouble". Elizabeth mothers Collin when he's hurt, tired or sleepy and then turns around and hollers at him in a moment of "big sister" frustrations. The sounds from the backyard when the two are making up new games together on their trampoline.

I resolve to live more in the moment and not in the future. I will spend more time snuggling than sending them away with a "not now, Mommie's busy". I want to read to them, dance with them, play with them, sing with them.

I want their memories of me to be filled with love and joy. I don’t want imagine the memories that Caylee held of her "mother" and how confusion and terror filled her last moments.

I try not to feel vindictive or vengeful. Well, - maybe not too hard at this moment.

For now, I would simply like to see Casey Anthony out of solitary confinement and released into a general population of prisoner parents who, for whatever reason, are locked away for life from the children they long to hold.

1 comment:

  1. Fia, your words echo many of my own frustrations!

    First, surely nobody with a brain really thought this mother would wait a MONTH before reporting her child missing!!

    To think of the horror this child must have experienced in those last moments makes me ill. I try to have compassion for mothers who snap, but that's so difficult to do!

    These teenagers of mine, both girls, can be such a trial at times, but I can't imagine my life without them!! Then the littles, both boys... gosh, to see life anew through their eyes again is such an amazing thing! When one of them spontaneously gives me a big hug and tells me he loves me, or one of the girls wants to sit on my lap and just be hugged for a bit 'cause life as a young woman is getting difficult... Life is good!

    I look foward to getting to know you again through your blog! I hope you and your family had a wonderful Christmas. Did your hubby get you that Fiat with the tag, "Fias T"??? :D

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