Giving Thanks

Giving Thanks

This Thanksgiving I am thankful for so very many things. I am thankful for my healthy, sweet, beautiful little daughters. I am thankful for my husband, who is literally the greatest guy in the history of ever. I am thankful for my parents and extended family, who have somehow managed to put up with me for 28 years. I am thankful for my friends, who play with me and spoil me and don't physically throttle me when I run my mouth off. I am thankful that we have plenty of food, a warm place to live, good health, money to buy the girls what they need, I could go on.

But what I am also thankful for, at this precise moment in time, is the fact that we have the death penalty in this country. And I'm hoping we make good use of it on this horrible fucking woman who killed her 11-month-old daughter by cutting her arms off. Just when you think you've read the most horrible story in the history of evil, something like this comes along and blows whatever previously held the title out of the water. I hate this woman. I hate her, I hate what she did, I hate that awful picture of her they're flashing all over the news, I physically hate her. I know as a woman I'm supposed to muster up some sympathy for her and her alleged depression but I just can't. I'm a mother first and a woman second. There is not one iota of sympathy for her in my body. My toenails hate her. My hair hates her. My foot wants to kick her ass so hard her spleen exits her body through her mouth. I absolutely loathe this woman. I'm choking on it.

If anything, I am reacting even more negatively to this than I would have if I wasn't a parent. If I wasn't a parent this would just be another gruesome story. But being that I am a parent, I'm horrified and disgusted that someone who's most important task in life is that she take care of her children could do something like this. It wasn't some random stranger, it was her mom. When I think about that poor baby and how much pain she must have been in and how she didn't understand why her mother was hurting her. Oh God, I hate this woman. I think I'm going to vomit. I'm just so fucking pissed. I mean, women do kill their own babies but it's usually less brutal. They smother them or drown them like Andrea Yates did (who I also hate by the way). But this exceeds even that because it was just plain torture.

These stories affect me more not just because they're about children, babies especially, but because they're about parents who hurt their kids. My mind literally can't comprehend how someone can do something so heinous to their own child. As a parent the single most important thing you can do in your life is protect your children. Whether that's by watching over them, teaching them how to make good decisions, educating them, it doesn't matter. It all falls under parental protection. And these people not only violate that, they shred it and bury it alive then violate it some more then spit on it. They should all be strapped in and if there's a lack of volunteers to flip the switch they should call me. Not that there would be a lack. She's in Texas. Death Row is like a rest stop in Texas. Not that she'd actually get the death penalty. They'll play that bullshit postpartum depression card and she'll get some type of leniency. Yeah I said it, "bullshit postpartum depression card" (and if you so-called feminists out there don't like it then let me know so I can post a picture of my ass for you to kiss). I'm not saying it doesn't exist. Of course it exists. But it's not an excuse for atrocious actions. And to believe that it is, is almost as sickening as the act itself. I don't care how depressed she was, who molested her, who her husband was banging, who got voted homecoming queen instead of her, what she did was inexcusable.

I'm sorry. This post in its draft state started out as a genuine list of things I was thankful for. But then I had to go and watch the damn news. I'm still thankful for many things, but right now (as my anger starts easing off a bit) I'm also thankful this woman is an exception, not the norm, and that most parents understand that their children are gifts to be loved and cherished and protected.