I want to talk about our Disney World trip, I want to talk about church, our new swingset in the back yard, my Zumba class, even my marriage, but I don't want to talk about this. I can't talk about this. It's hard even thinking about it. The thing that has been on my mind and deep in my heart for months. It's keeping me awake at night and stopping me in my tracks in the middle of the day; making my heart pound and ache with every beat.
I think about what her last visions were, what her last words were, her last thoughts. What does a child think as she watches her mother come closer, hold a wet cloth to her face? She breathes in the cold toxic air and gets sleepier and sleepier. Does she feel the life slipping out of her body or is she asleep by then? I think of the mother and how black-hearted she could be, trying to just get her child to sleep, to go away for a while so she can have a break. Did this little baby's mom get upset or sad when she noticed what she had done? Was it a mistake or just a miscalculation or did she want her gone? She sees what she has done and just wants it gone. She takes that precious little package, the package that God created in her womb only a few years before and she puts it to sleep like the local veterinarian down the road. She wraps it up in black garbage bags. She ties the end and throws it into a laundry bag so its easier to carry. I wonder if she carried a drink with her or stopped and got a snack in the kitchen on her way to toss the "laundry" in the back of her car, to sit and simmer in the hot Florida heat. What did she think as she drove around town that week, from place to place, while the carseat in the back of her car sat empty with just a babydoll occupying it and her "laundry" waiting?
What did she do the minutes before she decided to take the "laundry" out and throw it in the woods like garbage, like something she just didn't want or need anymore? I have so many questions that begin with why and how. I cry for this little baby like she was my own. I can't make sense of any of it. I ask God why every single day. I just don't understand anything anymore. I don't know if it's about the devilish mother who didn't love her baby enough, the baby who still had that button nose and didn't get the chance to grace the world with her presence long enough to even understand, the grandparents who weren't there to protect her from her inevitable future, or those 12 people who were supposed to hand out justice and make her mom pay for what she had taken away from this world.
I will remember that day for the rest of my life. My mom called to see what I thought and I couldn't even talk to her. I told my husband that no one cared about that baby, not her mother, not her grandparents, and not even these 12 people on the jury. These people, all of them, they let this poor baby down, a helpless, defenseless baby. They were told to find reasonable doubt, but their explaination, their excuse was that there wasn't enough evidence for the charges. A little baby girl is dead, lying in the woods for 6 months while her mother just walks around partying and getting laid and drunk, getting a tattoo to signify her daughters short life, all the while knowing that her baby is lying in the woods, rotting into dust and bones. Her car even has the smell death in it, but that isn't enough right? Not enough evidence. Ugh, I just hear that ringing in my ears every single day. Those people wouldn't even talk to the press afterward, which shows that they knew they were just plain wrong and letting this child down.
To tell you the truth, I don't know who I am more disgusted or disappointed with and I don't think I ever will. You just can't really get over something like this, especially as a mom. I just pray that I will understand God's plan in all of this, because without Him, I just can't stop crying about this precious little baby who was drug out of this world too soon. Even though I am a Christian and God-fearing woman and know that this world isn't going to get all rainbows and unicorns before the end of times, I know that something great has to come from this child's name, something that changes the lives of other baby's for the better. Please God, don't let her die in vain.
Rest in peace Caylee. Maybe some day, I can hold you in my arms and tell you how much you were truly loved, not just by me, but by the world....
