I have a new hero in my life.
Her name is Jaycee Dugard. She is the girl who was kidnapped at age 11 and held captive for 18 years in a backyard by a sex and drug addicted schizophrenic and his deranged wife. She had two daughters with her abductor, the first at age 14, and suffered sexual abuse unlike anything I have ever heard. I am reading her memoir, a stolen life, and am nearly done after just a day and a half (a record for me). I am finding myself on the verge of tears or vomiting pretty much through every chapter.
Jaycee's story is truly fascinating, gut-wrenching but fascinating, and sheds light on just how sick humans can be. It makes me angry, it makes me scared, but most of all it makes me feel helpless.
Jaycee writes, "It's easy for people to be horrified and shocked when someone is abducted, but what about all the other adults and kids living in sad homes?... I know I am not the only child to be hurt by a crazy adult. I am sure there are still the families that look great on the outside, but if someone were to delve deeper they would discover horrors beyond belief."
How do we help these children? How do we recover the abducted, save the prostituted and reclaim the sold? How do we uncover the true nature of an abusive household? More specifically, how do I? I want to comb through every picture of every child who has ever gone missing just in case I might recognize one, might have some sort of clue to solve the mystery and relieve the pain they and their families must be experiencing. They deserve closure, even if that closure is in the form of a dead body. These families need to know what happened to the most precious thing in their lives.
I would like to think I know the difference between appropriate and inappropriate when it comes to children. I would also like to think that if I do realize something isn't right, I will have the courage to say something. But it's difficult to question a parent, especially if that parent is a stranger. However, had a stranger not questioned the peculiar actions of Phillip Garrido, Jaycee's abductor, she may never have been reunited with her mother and sister. She would still be living as a slave to a crazy man, a mother of two raising her children in a backyard prison.
Jaycee writes, "We live in a world where we rarely speak out and when someone does, often nobody is there to listen... For many... it can be tough and scary to venture out and leave that comfort zone behind. It is so worth it, though. You could be saving a person or a family who is not able to save themselves."
Can you imagine how many kids would be saved if everyone who saw something suspicious spoke up? Sometimes mistakes would be made and people would get offended, but maybe if someone had said something sooner, Jaycee would have been safe at home years and years ago. I wonder how many opportunities I have missed to save a child just because I wasn't looking hard enough.
Use your eyes, your ears and your gut. Protect them. Help them. Find them. And most importantly, educate yourself. Jaycee is a survivor, one of the lucky few. There was nothing she could have done to prevent what happened to her, and had someone not been brave and observant enough to ask questions, she may not have made it. It is up to us to find them.
