Guilty or innocent?

Apparently there is "enough doubt" to release a woman from prison after twenty years. She was there for the alleged murder of her four young children.

Her former husband thinks she is guilty. Her friends don't. The court isn't sure. I don't know enough to have an opinion but I do know it is a mess.

It also made me wonder yet again how many people have been charged with and convicted of "murder" when a baby has died of natural causes.  The idea frightens me.

There is a section in our state show which says, "Handicrafts for others". There are just two classes in that section. One is for toys made for the purpose of giving them to our women's and children's hospital. They are then given to children as "comfort toys".  Some of the things which have been made and donated are really beautiful. A lot of love and care and attention has gone into them. The "winning" items do get awarded a ribbon but winners have often said that making it and knowing it is going to give some comfort to a child is the real reward. I am sure it is.

The other class is labelled "memory boxes". These are small boxes given to a mother who has lost a child, usually at birth. There are never very many of these. I would like to think they are very rarely needed but I know they need more than they get. We sometimes meet the people who have made them, often people who have lost a child themselves. 

Last year a woman came in with her son to pick up the ribbons they had won. Both of them had made almost identical boxes. The judges had found it difficult to choose between the two. Everyone in Handicrafts thought they had both been made by the same person. No, mother and son. There was something about her that told us she had lost a child. Her son, a boy of about twelve or thirteen, was very protective of her. He had a sort of maturity rarely found in a boy of that age. I felt for him as well when he told me quietly, "Mum is frightened of losing me too. I am going to make more boxes with her because it helps."

I hope it does help her. I have no idea how many years had passed but I doubt anyone "gets over it" as is all too often demanded. Now I often wish I had known so much more for my paternal grandmother's sake. She lost seven children to miscarriages. As children we didn't understand that. Our mother, with her Christian Science beliefs, would have held all that to be an "illusion of mortal mind". Her own mother only had two pregnancies and, having brought the necessary son into the world, refused to have anything more to do with the business.  It must have been so hard for my paternal grandmother to see all that. I wish I could hug her now, hug her again and again.

And the woman who has just been released after twenty years? She needs to be hugged because, whatever the story behind it all, she has lost four children too.