Leaving Chrysanthemums  − 18 December, 2005

My cousin is twenty-three years old, and her only child is dead.

She didn't die unexpectedly in her crib as she slept, as most parents fear. She didn't escape attention and run into to traffic at just the wrong moment. She didn't choke on her breakfast while her mother's back was turned. She was loved and protected, and was the single shining jewel in her mother's life.

She died covered in bruises and her eyes bulging and bloody from the pressure put on her small, innocent body. Her skin was purple and her face was red  and swollen with blood. The doctor said she had been shaken to death. Powerful, crushing hands had shaken my cousin's baby to death.

She let a man live with her long after his right had expired, an exboyfriend and the girl's father. No one could really say that what happened came as a surprise. The little girl fell victim to all sorts of cuts ands bruises that she was too young to explain. But only when her father was around did they appear, and he offered nothing as for their origination. As for the baby, she could only cry and cry as she sat in the doctor's office with her bewlidered mother.

I don't know, her mother would say. She was with her father.

He is in prison now, for the murder of his child.