In Memoriam. (Warning: Contains Discussion of Child Abuse And Child Homicide)
I read a news story on Earthlink last night that I keep thinking about this morning.
It concerned Tyruss Toribio, 3 years old, who was homeless and living in a park with his mother. As he slept on the playground, she smothered him to death and buried him under the sand, to be found the next day by another mother with her children.
Now it's easy to say "fry the bitch," "she'll rot in hell," "I would never do that," etc., and the news report certainly painted young Tiffany Toribio as a selfish, uncaring mother. But rarely is the human heart so transparent. Tellingly, she explained to police that she didn't want her son to have the kind of life she'd had.
The American mythos of changing oneself, of reinventing your life, of those fucking bootstraps everyone is always talking about (Have you ever seen a bootstrap? Really?) is so pervasive that it is rare for anyone to question it. But I'm here to tell you that it is, as often as not, complete bullshit.
My well-meaning friends may point to me as an example of how it can happen. And it's true, I have certainly come a long way from my inauspicious beginnings. But my journey is not yet complete, and it has required nearly superhuman persistence to avoid taking the path of least resistance and settling into the same circumstances I came from.
Both of my parents were very damaged individuals who did the best they could. It's just that their best often failed. My late father (an alcoholic and likely incest survivor) used to wake me up by pinching my nose shut, causing me to gasp and flail myself awake and making me, for several years, afraid to go to sleep until I was the last one awake in the house. I was nearly choked to death by my mother (a survivor of incest and child abuse) at the age of 18, at which time I made no attempt to fight back. Why should I? Just to do it all again? At that time the well seemed so deep that I would never be able to climb out. I prepared myself for death and felt my consciousness fade, only to come rushing back as my father pulled my mother off me. However, he'd been there the whole time and could easily have intervened sooner. No one can truly say what goes through another's mind.
I tell you these stories not to make you feel sorry for me or merely to demonstrate for you my own brokenness, but to show you the kind of thing that happens every day to small, helpless people who are then expected to magically overcome their feelings of depression and worthlessness and become productive members of society. I have been homeless, I have been physically threatened and sexually humiliated in intimate relationships, I have been suicidal. I am where I am today by the grace of God alone. Tiffany Toribio was not so lucky.
I am the mother of a 3-year-old son who is the light of my life, and I can honestly say that I have never, as I checked on him in his little bed at night, considered smothering him to be a reasonable course of action. But for me to say that I could never have been pushed that far, that I could never be so desperate, would be unbelievably arrogant.
Do not weep for Tyruss Toribio, he has no more earthly cares. He dwells forever in the peace of the Shekhinah (the Divine Presence of God). Weep instead for the thousands of others who suffer every day, whose cries go unheard.
Tiffany Toribio's community claims to be shocked and horrified at what happened. But how do you miss seeing a woman and child living in a park? Where were they in her hour of desperation?
We have become a people that devours its children. Be aware.
It concerned Tyruss Toribio, 3 years old, who was homeless and living in a park with his mother. As he slept on the playground, she smothered him to death and buried him under the sand, to be found the next day by another mother with her children.
Now it's easy to say "fry the bitch," "she'll rot in hell," "I would never do that," etc., and the news report certainly painted young Tiffany Toribio as a selfish, uncaring mother. But rarely is the human heart so transparent. Tellingly, she explained to police that she didn't want her son to have the kind of life she'd had.
The American mythos of changing oneself, of reinventing your life, of those fucking bootstraps everyone is always talking about (Have you ever seen a bootstrap? Really?) is so pervasive that it is rare for anyone to question it. But I'm here to tell you that it is, as often as not, complete bullshit.
My well-meaning friends may point to me as an example of how it can happen. And it's true, I have certainly come a long way from my inauspicious beginnings. But my journey is not yet complete, and it has required nearly superhuman persistence to avoid taking the path of least resistance and settling into the same circumstances I came from.
Both of my parents were very damaged individuals who did the best they could. It's just that their best often failed. My late father (an alcoholic and likely incest survivor) used to wake me up by pinching my nose shut, causing me to gasp and flail myself awake and making me, for several years, afraid to go to sleep until I was the last one awake in the house. I was nearly choked to death by my mother (a survivor of incest and child abuse) at the age of 18, at which time I made no attempt to fight back. Why should I? Just to do it all again? At that time the well seemed so deep that I would never be able to climb out. I prepared myself for death and felt my consciousness fade, only to come rushing back as my father pulled my mother off me. However, he'd been there the whole time and could easily have intervened sooner. No one can truly say what goes through another's mind.
I tell you these stories not to make you feel sorry for me or merely to demonstrate for you my own brokenness, but to show you the kind of thing that happens every day to small, helpless people who are then expected to magically overcome their feelings of depression and worthlessness and become productive members of society. I have been homeless, I have been physically threatened and sexually humiliated in intimate relationships, I have been suicidal. I am where I am today by the grace of God alone. Tiffany Toribio was not so lucky.
I am the mother of a 3-year-old son who is the light of my life, and I can honestly say that I have never, as I checked on him in his little bed at night, considered smothering him to be a reasonable course of action. But for me to say that I could never have been pushed that far, that I could never be so desperate, would be unbelievably arrogant.
Do not weep for Tyruss Toribio, he has no more earthly cares. He dwells forever in the peace of the Shekhinah (the Divine Presence of God). Weep instead for the thousands of others who suffer every day, whose cries go unheard.
Tiffany Toribio's community claims to be shocked and horrified at what happened. But how do you miss seeing a woman and child living in a park? Where were they in her hour of desperation?
We have become a people that devours its children. Be aware.