Cassidy McKay here. I live in Northern California, and I'm the mother of four children. While normally I write about romance, entanglements, humor, love and sex, today I'm not. I tried, but there is something on my mind that takes precedence.
Many of you may have heard the news stories of a little 8-year old girl who was missing from Tracy, California. We followed this story very closely as one of my daughters is the same age. Tragically yesterday, they found the little girl's body stuffed in a suitcase and dumped in an irrigation pond 2 miles from her home.
Home surveillance videos in the mobile home park where the girl lived showed her walking and skipping along the street shortly before she went missing. Playing and happy, just like every little kid should enjoy life. Those are the last images of this little one.
So while love and romance are both thrilling and exciting, this is just a reminder to keep your loved ones (whether small children or not) close and in your heart. You never know when you won't have the chance to tell them what you should have said.
Sorry for the somber note, this just really brought to my mind (as my 8-year old daughter is going camping with a friend for the next 5 days), how fleeting and temporary that life, love and childhood are. My heart goes out to the family.
If you love someone, let them know.
~Cassidy
3 comments:
I appreciate your comments and understand where you are coming from. My children are older now, but I have grandchildren that are younger and I always give them an extra hug when I hear about something like this. We've had a little girl in our area, Haleigh Cummings from Satsuma, FL, missing since February 10. They still have not found her. I'm thankful that I have a very loving family who are not afraid to give each other a hug and that when we say goodbye we always add "I love you".
What a great blog- thanks for posting this Cassidy!
Kissa
It makes me so angry to think that we live in such a wonderful country with such wonderful people. Land of the free, home of the brave. We seem to open our hearts and minds to every type of lifestyle and culture out there.
So how can people walk amongst us that can commit this type of atrocity? I feel so helpless when I see these stories. I can't fathom the idea of what kind of sick mind it takes to prey on a child.
My children and I have always had this motto: Never say goodbye to each other without an I love you too no matter how mad you are.
I remember when one of my girls was thirteen, she and I had a major argument on the way to school. She got out of the car and turned to me, but didn't say it. She looked at me, dead in the eye, but didn't say it. I kept my mouth shut, thinking the same thing. All day long I thought about that. I was so anxious to see her at the end of the day. I drove up to pick her up and she ran, I mean ran, to the car, jerked the door open and said, "I've had the worst day, Teasy, I didn't tell you I loved you and I've cried almost all day." Her eyes were so swollen and I started to cry and so did she.
We hugged, and we have never said goodbye again without saying, "I love you." I could go on with this story about how important that little "I love you" became as there was a time in our lives when Taylor said good bye and I love you and we didn't see each other for a very long time. But I won't get into all that.
You've made me all misty eyed, Cassidy.
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