Sheera, not the Princess of Power

As I hung Christmas ornaments yesterday I was boiling with unexamined anger over this Facebook child abuse cartoon character meme. I picked out a white ornament with an early eighties date that said "Baby's First Christmas" and thought it was strange because neither of my siblings were born in the eighties. Who does this ornament refer to? It took me a few minutes, but I realized it was for my first cousin Sheera who lived with us when she was a toddler. I was Henry's age and Sheera was Quinn's age and I resented her for living with us. Having a reasonably happy family, I didn't know and couldn't conceive of a reason why she wasn't with her mom. I just wanted her to leave and eventually she did.

I have another first cousin a couple years older than me who I saw occassionally growing up. Jeremiah sometimes stayed with us, sometimes with my abusive Grandfather, and sometimes with his mother. They moved around a lot and Jeremiah created a skater badass persona for himself. Unbenownst to me, he endured unimaginable abuse. His mother's final act of child abuse was to kill herself so that he found her. [Edited: For over 20 years that was the truth as I knew it, but one of the benefits of writing is my mom let me know Jeremiah was sent to Arkansas shortly before his mother passed.] He was 14 as far as I can figure.

In an effort to save Jeremiah, Sheera's mother took him in to her small trailer home in rural Arkansas. He seemed to be making progress with family attention and therapy. But in the culminating act of several generations of abuse, in the summer of 1991, 16 year old Jeremiah murdered 10 year old Sheera. The details are here: http://caselaw.findlaw.com/ar-supreme-court/1155305.html

At the time Leah and I were visiting our Jones grandparents in Texas. We were flown to Arkansas for the funeral. It's a mind altering position to be the family of both the murder victim and child murderer. After nearly 20 years this is not something I think about often, but it was a traumatic and defining event in my life.

This child abuse cartoon meme strikes a lot of chords for me and they are the saddest and angriest of chords. Sheera's cartoon princess of power name provided no protection against abuse. And a meme to raise awareness without a call to action is a hollow thing indeed. No status that I saw included any information on what to do in case of child abuse.

If someone had called child protective services for Jeremiah 30 years ago, 25 years ago, the whole contour of our family could be different. Jeremiah is a 35ish year old man who has spent his entire adult life incarcerated. Sheera would be 29 this year.

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In Illinois, call 1-800-25-ABUSE to make a report to DCFS. Nationally, you can call 1-800-4-A-CHILD.

If you feel moved to make a donation, I suggest googling crisis nursery plus your location. A crisis nursery seeks to prevent child abuse and neglect by providing emergency intervention, respite care and support to families in crisis.