When Tears Are No Longer Enough

http://www.tampabay.com/specials/2008/reports/danielle/

When I became a mother I developed a dread of flying and an irrational fear connected to their tiny barely lived souls and the remote possibility of crashing so soon in their lives.  Tomorrow Ollie turns 18, Sophie-G. is 15 and Lexi 8 and the only thing on all of our minds nowadays when we board a plane is who gets one of the two Business Class seats bought with MilesandMore.  The contention is so irrefutable that evidence is barely necessary but still they negotiate, cajole, and bribe.  How times and feelings change.

ONE side effect of motherhood that has remained is that I find I cry more easily – at the television mainly – and in copious amounts as if all three off-spring had fought their way out of my tear ducts not my womb. (Apologies to Adam if mention of my womb is seen as a tease, see comments on previous blog Flashing The Locals).

I first watched this report on Danielle, the Feral Child – press on above link then CONTINUE to see video and audio – when it was aired in the United States but there were none of the usual tears just a slackening of the heart and a stillness of the breath. 

When Danielle was discovered in a walk-in closet in a cockroach infested house she was seven years old.  It may be too late for her to learn to speak coherently enough to hold a conversation.

“In the first five years of life, 85 percent of the brain is developed,” said Armstrong, the psychologist who examined Danielle. “Those early relationships, more than anything else, help wire the brain and provide children with the experience to trust, to develop language, to communicate. They need that system to relate to the world.”

Go hug a child.

Copyright Julesritter August 2008