the extended family of a little girl who lost her life in the early hours of Saturday morning. After a family breakdown years ago, the Grandmother didn't even know she had 2 grandchildren until Saturday.
A case of 'forgotten victim' almost, and now that she's gone I'd hate to see life go buy unacknowledged, the way it appears to have been while she was alive.
Some long-time family friends of mine live in Mt Gravatt East here in Brisbane. Our kids have grown up together. On many an occassion my son has stayed at their house and played with the neighbourhood kids. I myself have babysat some of the neighbourhood kids at their house, and in turn some of the neighbours had watched our kids while we went down to the shops or bank etc. One of these kids was an energetic little boy, the apple of his dad's eye. He was a happy and healthy kid, and his father doted on him. His mother was fairly housebound, but a lovely lady none the less on the occassion we met her/went shopping with her etc. On more than one occassion, the father and/or mother had watched our kids for us while we ran errands.
In the early hours of Saturday morning I received a phone call from my friends, asking if I could come and pick up their kids, there was something unfolding in the street, the police were all over the place some tv cameras were arriving, and they didn't want their kids being there while it was all happening.
As I type this, I still find it hard to take in. It wasn't just a household of Mum, Dad and little boy. They had a little girl as well. She was a 2 year old. In the 2 years (next week) that my friends have lived there, neither they nor I even had an inkling that there was a little girl living in the house. We never saw her, heard her cry, heard her laugh, anything. The little boy had never mentioned a sister. But she had been there.
And now she is dead. The little boy is in care. And his parents, the same parents who had looked after our own children on occassion, are in police custody. "Differening stories" is what we have been told they are being held over.
The police tape came down from around the house yesterday. The cover of a futon mattress has been cut out, but the mattress itself and the seeped through massive blood stain are lying in the front yard. The police have put out an appeal to find the cab driver that took the mother and unconcious child to the hospital. And a lovely little boy has lost his entire family in one swoop. His parents in jail, his sister dead.
It's hard to digest in this day and age, that being only 50meters away from their front door many many times, we didn't even know she existed. And that those same ppl we entrusted our own children to, even for only brief periods, are the ones under suspicion of her murder. And that a little girl came into this world, lived in it for 2 years, and all bar a small handful of people never even knew she existed, saw her smile, heard her laugh, and felt her presence on this earth.
It's just so terribly sad.
A case of 'forgotten victim' almost, and now that she's gone I'd hate to see life go buy unacknowledged, the way it appears to have been while she was alive.
Some long-time family friends of mine live in Mt Gravatt East here in Brisbane. Our kids have grown up together. On many an occassion my son has stayed at their house and played with the neighbourhood kids. I myself have babysat some of the neighbourhood kids at their house, and in turn some of the neighbours had watched our kids while we went down to the shops or bank etc. One of these kids was an energetic little boy, the apple of his dad's eye. He was a happy and healthy kid, and his father doted on him. His mother was fairly housebound, but a lovely lady none the less on the occassion we met her/went shopping with her etc. On more than one occassion, the father and/or mother had watched our kids for us while we ran errands.
In the early hours of Saturday morning I received a phone call from my friends, asking if I could come and pick up their kids, there was something unfolding in the street, the police were all over the place some tv cameras were arriving, and they didn't want their kids being there while it was all happening.
As I type this, I still find it hard to take in. It wasn't just a household of Mum, Dad and little boy. They had a little girl as well. She was a 2 year old. In the 2 years (next week) that my friends have lived there, neither they nor I even had an inkling that there was a little girl living in the house. We never saw her, heard her cry, heard her laugh, anything. The little boy had never mentioned a sister. But she had been there.
And now she is dead. The little boy is in care. And his parents, the same parents who had looked after our own children on occassion, are in police custody. "Differening stories" is what we have been told they are being held over.
The police tape came down from around the house yesterday. The cover of a futon mattress has been cut out, but the mattress itself and the seeped through massive blood stain are lying in the front yard. The police have put out an appeal to find the cab driver that took the mother and unconcious child to the hospital. And a lovely little boy has lost his entire family in one swoop. His parents in jail, his sister dead.
It's hard to digest in this day and age, that being only 50meters away from their front door many many times, we didn't even know she existed. And that those same ppl we entrusted our own children to, even for only brief periods, are the ones under suspicion of her murder. And that a little girl came into this world, lived in it for 2 years, and all bar a small handful of people never even knew she existed, saw her smile, heard her laugh, and felt her presence on this earth.
It's just so terribly sad.
And I guess it puts things in perspective, I mean we all whinge that something or other bad happened in our childhood but I can say that my own story totally pales in comparison to that.
