Family Forum / Parenting / Single Parents / October 2006

This is just kind of a rant, so I do apologize...

A while back, I'd guess well over 6 months ago, I was out and about with a
girl friend at the mall.  This is the friend with the little boy born the
same day as A, so it was her and I, along with her baby, A and B.
We're walking through the mall and made our way out the door to have a quick
smoke.  We're standing out there, and I'm approached by a girl who looks to
be about my age.  She calls my name.  I look at her, and then recognize her.
She's a girl I grew up with.  They lived on the corner house on my parents'
block.  She was a year younger than me, and she had a brother 2 years older
than me.  They also had 3 noisy chihuahuas (and I remember one was REALLY
fat and was always my favorite - just pointless info)
Well, we're all standing outside, she bums a smoke and says she's living not
too far from this particular mall, was living in another city 3 hours away
until fairly recently when she came back home, and she has 2 little girls
that the dad has full custody of (IMO, seems like a good idea after all
this...)  She kind of looked like hell.  Almost like druggie/alcoholic hell,
but she said she was doing a lot better now, wanted to stay here for a while
to straighten up and get herself in order and then try and get visitation
with her girls, which, IIRC, were something like 2 and 3 years of age.
She then asked me if I've heard about her brother lately.  Back when we were
all around the 11-12 age, I know her brother had like a schoolboy crush on
me (for lack of a better word?) but at that age, I found him more creepy -
considering he was a boy and all AND he was about 2 years older than me.  We
were all friends, since we grew up in the same neighbourhood, basically as
neighbours.
She said that her brother was in some trouble here in the city.  She asked
if I heard about it, which I really hadn't heard much about, but didn't
admit to reading a small article in the paper a while before this.
Something about a baby died and he was being accused of it, and she was
saying it's all a horrible mistake.  A 'tragic accident' was a word she had
used, and I remember that clearly still.
I do remember reading something about it before, and I remember calling my
mom to ask her about it, asked her if it was the same guy from down the
block, once I read the name.  My mom didn't know, but she assumed there
weren't many people with that particular name (not a VERY common name like
John Smith or something)

Now there's a trial for this guy.  I guess it's been going on for a little
while.  Papers have had articles on this stuff for the last couple weeks or
so, and every few days I'll see it in the paper and read it.  The story (his
story) was that he was babysitting his then girlfriend's daughter, who was
something like 14ish months old.  The mom (gf) was going to work, her 6 year
old daughter was in school, and this guy offered to babysit the baby.  He
then says that he called 911 when the baby fell down the stairs and
basically became unresponsive, just staring and having trouble breathing.
That was his version of what happened, and I guess the baby died the next
day due to injuries - I think she went into surgery that day, next day she
was said to be brain dead and pulled off life support.  That story alone
made me sick, as obviously there was this feeling of something's not right,
this story just doesn't seem to sit well with me.

Not long ago, within the last week, I guess, my dumbass brother made a real
stupid comment to me.  He said something like, "Ha!  I remember Dave!  Good
thing you didn't date!" and that kind of made me fairly uncomfortable.
Haven't seen this guy since I was about 17 or 18 or so, so it has been quite
a few years, but when I did see him, we did talk a bit and all that.

Now, just this morning, I read in the paper that his story has changed from
the baby falling down the stairs to the baby began crying and screaming, he
threw toys at her, threw her on the sofa, shoved a coffee table on wheels at
her when she fell off the table and, basically, abused the baby to the
extent that it was in.  It just makes me sick.  I almost feel like I can't
believe I knew this guy, even though it was years ago that I did know him.
And my smart brother has to make a disgusting comment, which I know he
didn't intend to make it come out like that, but really... I just needed to
rant and rave a little, since the article I read just this morning made me
want to vomit.