His name was Elijah

On the morning of Thursday February 19th the body of a three year old baby boy was found outside, hiding next to the steps of a home, in the northern part of the City of Toronto.  His name was Elijah.  It was one of the coldest days of the year.  This beautiful boy had gotten up at around 4am in the morning, and according to the security cameras in the lobby of his apartment building, just wandered off wearing only a diaper, t-shirt and his winter boots.  We have no idea how long this baby lived.  We have no idea what he felt.  We have no idea what he was thinking. 

I am pretty sure this is where anyone with a heart starts crying. 

This baby was one of the cutest little boys I have EVER seen.  I am not going to post a picture here because it feels wrong to do so.  It feels like I would be selling this story by just doing that, to grab your interest with his sweet Gerber baby face.  And that's how I feel about every news outlet using his picture.  I feel like they are screaming, "LOOK AT THIS FACE, READ ME!" 

I don't have the exact facts but at 3 years of age Elijah would have stood at about two feet and probably weighed in at 15-20 pounds.   I have a 14 year old step daughter.  I am not sure who walks harder on the floor, the 14 year old, or the 3 year old version of her once did.  As a baby she threw herself all over the damn place.  Stomped her feet as she bounded around everywhere.  How did this boy get from his room, to the apartment door, open it, get downstairs, and out the front door?  In asking all those questions I have no idea where his room is in the apartment.  I just ask these questions in my head.  Apparently he stayed with his grandmother when his mother was at work.  Perhaps he stayed on her couch near the door?  Maybe he stayed in his own room or maybe a guest room?  How far did he have to go unnoticed to make it to their apartment door?  Why wasn't he heard?  Question after question.

My step daughter fell in the lake once.  My husband was right there.  He turned for a second and heard the splash.  He had her up on the dock in another second.  We got lucky.  How did she fall in so fast?  Why wasn't his eye on her the entire time she was on that dock?  Did he not hear her come up behind him?  There are days since she was born that she just appears out of nowhere.  I don't hear her coming.  She's like a little ninja sometimes that way.

Elijah was only two feet tall.  How did he reach the lock on the door of the apartment?  When I lived in an apartment the deadbolt was at my chest level, the chain higher.  How did he reach that?  According to the stories, Elijah lived in government subsidized housing.  Do they have the luxury of proper locks?  I don't know.   It's just another question. 

I remember once having to spend a half hour teaching my step daughter how to unlock the bathroom door.  Our doors are from the 70s and they stay locked if the little button inside of the handle is firmly pushed in and twisted.  Her brother had managed to leave it locked, likely not closing the door at all when he went in there last.  She locked herself in.  These weird unexpected things happen sometimes.  Hopefully they just don't cost us as much as Elijah's story cost him and his family. 

Does your baby get up in the night?  Do you hear your baby no matter what?  Most mother's will tell you they do.  It's part of their internal alarm system.  When they hear a sound, even the smallest of stirrings, a mother wakes up.  Often a mother gets no rest until their babies leave the nest and they can finally get some sound sleep.  Elijah was with his grandmother.  Was she finally adapted to sleeping through her internal alarm?

I wonder if Elijah's grandmother will ever forgive herself?  Whether she heard something, or didn't.  Sometimes we think we hear something and go back to sleep shaking off "that feeling".  Perhaps she takes medication that makes her sleep heavy.  Maybe she doesn't.  Fault or no fault.  She will never forgive herself.  That's what stopped me from posting on Facebook that day, "How the fuck does a 3 year old leave an apartment unnoticed at 4am?"  What difference does that question make now?  He is gone and she will forever know she was right there when it happened. 

Within a day of Elijah's passing a good samaritan started crowd funding for his funeral.  I guess the assumption was made that the family would need financial help to pay for his funeral so this stranger, with a child of Elijah's age, started raising money.  Not even a week later and almost $175,000 has been raised.  The fundraiser has said the money will be given directly to the family to choose whatever they see fit to do with it. 

We all know this money does NOTHING to ease the pain of loss.  Money does not ease grief.  I have seen people in hospital that use substance to avoid dealing head on with their grief.  That's about the only way to postpone feeling it, by avoiding it mentally and physically using some sort of substance.  Otherwise, it's there.  Beating down the barriers of the mind and heart, FOREVER. 

Having that knowledge does not change the fact that people are getting money they would not be getting unless their child died.  It's that fact I struggle with.  Maybe it's because money is usually attached to something positive, production, output, or good results.  Or maybe, deep down, I want to lay blame.  I think it's human nature when something this tragic happens.  Someone HAS to be to blame.  Beautiful babies don't die unless someone is to blame.  And now they are getting money?  This doesn't seem right to me, and to others.  On the other side of that coin I can say to myself, "Fuck it, go buy yourself a vacation, a new car, anything to distract for one second the devastation of this hell you are living".

Judgement is often a multiple player game with two way streets. 

I am not judging this family.  Until someone tells me neglect was a part of this loss I will fight my urge to want to lay blame.  I have voiced my dismay over the entire story but I am not pointing my finger. If you don't have a distaste for this you are not being honest. It's fucking awful.  And it could have been prevented if, and only if, the future could always be predicted.  Which it can't.  Ask anyone who's lost their kid in a store, or watched them get hurt doing something they shouldn't have allowed.  The only difference, you hopefully got to take your kid home that day, the Marsh family, didn't.

In this world today we are being conditioned to be so sensitive to judgement that sometimes we aren't allowing people to share their feelings openly and honestly as perhaps we should.  The funny part is, we actually judge those that we believe are passing judgement as bad people.  Often because we do not want to hear the worst case scenario when faced with, the worst case scenario.  And this story, was life's worst case scenario.  

Please everyone, hug your kids, every day.