My Single Mom Life

Quite possibly the most heartbreaking story of child abuse and neglect, in the St. Petersburg Times, on their Tampabay.com website on July 31st.
The article was titled, The girl in the window.

The family had lived in the rundown rental house for almost three years when someone first saw a child's face in the window. A little girl, pale, with dark eyes, lifted a dirty blanket above the broken glass and peered out, one neighbor remembered. Everyone knew a woman lived in the house with her boyfriend and two adult sons. But they had never seen a child there, had never noticed anyone playing in the overgrown yard. The girl looked young, 5 or 6, and thin. Too thin. Her cheeks seemed sunken; her eyes were lost. The child stared into the square of sunlight, then slipped away. Months went by. The face never reappeared.

Child Protective services had been there twice in just a few short months in 2002.
They never took the child, and what's even more disturbing is that they never even interviewed her.
If they had, they would have found that the 4-year old girl couldn't speak at all, warning bells would have sounded.
But DCF never spoke to her, they offered the mother child care help, but it was refused, and they went away.
If only they had investigated further, if only they had kept the case open longer and made more visits to the home over a few more months.
Maybe Danielle, now known as Dani, wouldn't have ended up as a feral child.
When two Plant City police offers entered the house on July 13th 2005, one of them came back out and vomited in the tall grass of the yard that hadn't been cut in months.
Things crunched under their feet.
Large German cockroaches were everywhere, under foot, on the walls, in the lampshades, in the freezer.
There was trash everywhere, dirty laundry, broken curtain rods holding up tattered and yellow stained curtains from years of smoking.
The house was full of, and smelled of feces from cats, dogs, and humans.
It was in the carpet, on counter tops, splattered on the walls.

The police were there to find and remove the little girl that neighbors had reported as being abused and neglected.
She had never been outside, she was only ever seen wearing a diaper.
She was 7 years old.
Detective Holste looked around at the filth, he asked the woman living there, the mother, where the little girl was.
She pointed down the hallway, and he went down the dark, dirty and moldy hallway, turned the handle on a door, and he found her.

First he saw the girl's eyes: dark and wide, unfocused, unblinking. She wasn't looking at him so much as through him. She lay on a torn, moldy mattress on the floor. She was curled on her side, long legs tucked into her emaciated chest. Her ribs and collarbone jutted out; one skinny arm was slung over her face; her black hair was matted, crawling with lice. Insect bites, rashes and sores pocked her skin. Though she looked old enough to be in school, she was naked - except for a swollen diaper. "The pile of dirty diapers in that room must have been 4 feet high," the detective said. "The glass in the window had been broken, and that child was just lying there, surrounded by her own excrement and bugs." When he bent to lift her, she yelped like a lamb. "It felt like I was picking up a baby," Holste said. "I put her over my shoulder, and that diaper started leaking down my leg." The girl didn't struggle. Holste asked, What's your name, honey? The girl didn't seem to hear. He searched for clothes to dress her, but found only balled-up laundry, flecked with feces. He looked for a toy, a doll, a stuffed animal. "But the only ones I found were covered in maggots and roaches." Choking back rage, he approached the mother. How could you let this happen? "The mother's statement was: 'I'm doing the best I can,' " the detective said. "I told her, 'The best you can sucks!' "

The little girl has been permanently taken away from her birth mother, she's been adopted, but she's never spoken a word, she doesn't know how to speak. No one ever held her, talked to her, sang to her, played with her. She was left alone in that room, in dirty diapers, in a room full of dirty diapers and filth. You have to read that story, the whole thing.

I was ok reading it, not crying but my heart was just breaking, and then Sebastian came out and asked me what I was reading.
I lost it.
I just completely fell apart.
I sobbed barely breathing, trying to explain to him what I had read, I could barely speak.
I simply can't fathom how someone could do that to a child.
To just place her in a room in the dark, in dirty diapers, with more dirty diapers around her, bugs eating her skin, in her hair, never ever speaking to her, never loving her.
My heart just broke in a million pieces for Dani, and I am so glad she has found wonderful new parents who are loving and patient, and a 10 year old brother who is the most awesome little boy.
His heart is huge, it's amazing the sacrifices he's made for his new sister.
Really, you must read that story.
Just get your kleenex ready, you're going to need them.