A/N: This story is based on the NBC television series The Facts of Life, which as far as I know, is the property of Embassy Television, Columbia Pictures Television, and Sony Pictures Television. No infringement is intended.
Ice
Just a few weeks ago, I was so happy, and my life seemed to be so perfect. That's not to say that I've never had any problems in my life, of course. I lost both my parents about ten years ago. I ran off and eloped with a boy I hardly knew when I was seventeen, and ten years and two sons later, I'd finally had all I could stand of his continual gambling debt and alcoholism, and I filed for a divorce. And as a registered nurse, I saw many sick and injured people, and I even saw patients die occasionally. So obviously, my life hasn't always been peaches and cream. But all in all, my life's been pretty wonderful compared with most. I was blessed to have two wonderful sons and watch them grow up. I was blessed to get to see many parts of the world back in the first two years of my marriage when my ex-husband and I joined the Peace Corps. And after working a number of different jobs, I finally appeared to have found my niche here at the Eastland School for Girls as the school dietician. Here at Eastland, I'm the guardian of four girls who got into trouble and nearly got expelled two and a half years ago, whose names are Blair Warner, Jo Polniaczek, Natalie Green, and Tootie Ramsey. I managed to talk the headmaster into letting Blair, Jo, Natalie, and Tootie stay at Eastland, but he only agreed to allow it if they worked for me in the school cafeteria, and if they lived in the room across the hall from me rather than in the dorms so that I could keep a constant eye on them. It seemed like a major inconvenience at first, but it turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened to me. These past two and a half years that I've had my girls living with me has been the happiest time of my life. But several weeks ago, my whole world completely changed. All my life, I've always been so confident. I always knew who I was. Now, I don't know who I am anymore.
It all started in the wee hours of one Sunday morning in December when Jo came angrily stomping through the cafeteria, well past her curfew, which was not uncommon for her at all. After stomping off into the lounge, she took off her jacket and helmet and threw them down on the loveseat. I wasn't surprised when she did that because I knew she'd had many fights with her father over the past week, and I knew that she'd already been in an angry mood throughout the week, so this latest fight with Mr. Polniaczek was the equivalent of throwing a lit match into a warehouse full of fireworks. Jo had always been tough and angry a lot of the time, but all the fights with her father had made her even more enraged than usual.
"What is it, Jo? What's the matter?" I asked.
"It's Pop," she said with disgust.
"Did you and your father have a fight?"
"Outta nowhere, he introduces me to this woman and tells me that they're gonna get married. Then he introduces me to her son and daughter, and then he takes us all out to eat, and he spends the whole night talkin' with 'em and askin' 'em questions and bein' all romantic and gooey and sick with his fiancée. It really made me sick! He spends my whole life just ignorin' Ma and me, treatin' us like we don't even exist, betraying us, and then he expects me to spend a whole night watchin' him gushing over his new girlfriend and her children. How would you feel in a situation like that, Mrs. G.?"
"Probably the same way you're feeling right now," I admitted.
Jo then sighed, shook her head, and said, "He's never gonna change. I don't know what I was thinkin' lettin' a jerk like him into my life again. He betrayed me over and over again when I was a kid. He abandoned me. And now he's abandoning me all over again! I was such a fool to ever trust that creep!"
"Now wait a minute, Jo. I know that your father has made many mistakes, and I know that he's hurt you very badly over the years. But no matter what, he is and always will be your father, and you cannot talk about him like that. Remember God's commandments."
"And what about God's commandment to fathers, for them to not provoke their children to wrath? Why is it only the commandment to 'honor thy father and mother' that always gets harped on, Mrs. G.? Why are you shoving 'honor thy father and mother' down my throat and not sayin' anything to Pop about how he shouldn't provoke me to wrath? Why are you always like this? Why do you always take our parents' side over ours when our parents hurt us? And why did you push Pop and me so hard into havin' a relationship again when you knew the whole time that there was a good chance that I was gonna get hurt again? Newsflash, Mrs. Garrett: my relationship with my father – or my decision not to have a relationship with my father – isn't any of your business, and it never was. I would've been better off had you not butted into my life and manipulated Pop and me into havin' a relationship again, and I would've been better off had Pop never come back into my life at all!"
"Jo, you don't mean that."
"Yes, I do! All Pop ever does is hurt me and disrespect me, and I'm sick of it! And I'm so sick of the double standard. If a child disrespects a parent, that's so horrible and so wrong. But if a parent disrespects a child, it's no big deal and nobody ever calls them on it."
"Jo, I really do think you're overreacting. Yes, your father was very insensitive to you tonight, but I honestly don't believe he did it on purpose."
In that moment, the payphone rang, and I answered it.
"Hello? Eastland School for Girls," I said.
"Mrs. Garrett?" said the male voice on the other end of the line.
"Yes, this is Mrs. Garrett," I told him.
"This is Charlie Polniaczek."
"Oh, hello, Mr. Polniaczek," I said, and in that instant, Jo stormed out of the lounge in a big huff.
"Is Jo around?" he asked.
"No, she isn't," I told him truthfully. By that moment, Jo had already left the lounge. And even if she had been there, it probably wouldn't have been a very good idea to let her talk to him, given how furious she was.
"Oh. She may not have gotten back to campus yet. But anyway, when she does get back, would you give her a message for me, Mrs. Garrett?"
"Certainly."
"Tell her that I want her to meet me at my apartment at eight o'clock tomorrow morning. I wanna take her and my fiancée and her kids out for breakfast, and then I figured we could all go to church together."
"I'll tell her, Mr. Polniaczek. Thank you for calling."
"Thank you."
"Have a good night, Mr. Polniaczek."
"You too, Mrs. Garrett," he told me, and then we hung up.
I then walked out into the cafeteria where Jo was standing with her arms folded.
"What did he want?" she asked angrily.
"Your father wants you to meet him at his apartment at eight o'clock tomorrow morning. He wants to take you and his fiancée and her children out to breakfast tomorrow morning, and then to church." I placed special emphasis on the words, "your father," because I wanted to not-so-subtly remind Jo that Mr. Polniaczek wasn't a mere "he."
"Hmph! He can forget that! I'd rather eat dirt!"
"Jo, he's your father. I know that he's done some terrible things, but even so, it doesn't change the fact that he is your father. He's trying, in his own way, to have a relationship with you. I know he isn't going about it in the best way, but still, he's trying, which is a lot more than many kids can say about their fathers."
"So what is that supposed to mean? That kids are so worthless, that kids mean so little, that we're just supposed to accept the very worst from our parents and be grateful that they're willing to give us anything at all? Boy, Mrs. G., you must really think that kids are garbage."
"I didn't say that, Jo."
"Yes, you did, Mrs. G. In so many words, that's exactly what you say all the time, not just to me, but to any girl in this school when her parents hurt her. With all due respect, Mrs. Garrett, you really are very prejudiced against children and young people, and you seem to have this mentality that parents are perfect and can do no wrong. And even if parents aren't perfect, even if they hurt their kids very badly, you really do seem to believe that they can't ever be called out on it because parents matter so much more than kids do. And you know something? I'm really getting tired of it, Mrs. Garrett. I am so tired of your pro-parent and anti-kid bias. You really need to stop and remember that it is just as wrong for a parent to disrespect a kid as it is for a kid to disrespect a parent. And you also really need to stop and remember that kids matter every bit as much as all you high-and-mighty parents do."
"Jo, I never meant to imply that you don't matter. As I said, I know your father has hurt you. But Jo, you have to realize that Mr. Polniaczek is and always will be your father. He's the only father you'll ever have, and no matter what mistakes he makes, you still need to be respectful because without him, you wouldn't exist."
"So donating some DNA gives him the right to do anything he wants, no matter how much it hurts me? I always have to respect him no matter what, yet it's perfectly okay for him to disrespect me? Don't you get it what a double standard that is, Mrs. Garrett? How prejudiced that is? I've put up with so much pain all my life because of my father, and you wanna know something? I've had it," Jo said with pure disgust.
And with that, Jo stomped back into the lounge, put on her leather jacket and helmet, and left in a huff. Part of me wanted to stop her and talk to her some more, to reassure her that I didn't believe that parents mattered more than children did, but I figured that since she was so angry, it was probably better to let her leave. I guess I was hoping that if I let her go out for a while, she could get all her anger out of her system. It's a decision I will regret every second of every day for the rest of my life.
The phone in our kitchen rang at eight-thirty that morning, and I answered. It was Judy Ford, Mr. Polniaczek's fiancée. She informed me that Jo actually had shown up at Mr. Polniaczek's apartment at eight o'clock that morning like he'd asked. But unbeknownst to Jo, Mr. Polniaczek had called his fiancée after he'd called the school that night, and they had a long, drawn-out fight that lasted for over three hours. Then she came over to his apartment about an hour later, and when she got there, she discovered that he was dead drunk and completely out of his mind. They continued fighting for another couple of hours until Jo finally showed up at a few minutes after eight that morning. It wasn't long before Mr. Polniaczek started picking a fight with Jo, and when they started fighting, Mr. Polniaczek, in a drunken rage, suddenly hit Jo as hard as he could and knocked her to the ground. Jo had her back turned to him at the time, so she didn't see the blow coming. As soon as Jo hit the ground, she immediately started bleeding from her nose, mouth, and ears, and Mrs. Ford tried desperately hard to wake Jo up, to no avail, so she quickly phoned for an ambulance.
"I'm very sorry," Jo's doctor told Mrs. Polniaczek, the girls, and me at the hospital an hour later. "The news is not good, Mrs. Polniaczek. We ran some scans of your daughter's brain, and there's a lot of swelling on her brain. And a lot of bleeding. She took a very hard blow to her head. Furthermore, we discovered something else that we didn't expect."
"What is it, doctor?" Mrs. Polniaczek asked the short, bald man.
"Mrs. Polniaczek, are you aware that your daughter has a brain tumor?"
Mrs. Polniaczek and the girls and I gave each other a shocked glance, all of us horrified to hear what the doctor said. And in the next moment, Mrs. Polniaczek looked back at the doctor and told him, "N-no. I had no idea."
"She has had some headaches lately," I mentioned, "but I thought it was just stress. The mid-terms are coming up soon and she's been very busy studying for those. And I know she's been having a lot of fights with her father lately. I was sure her headaches were caused by all the stress with her father and the mid-terms. I never imagined it could be anything as serious as a brain tumor," I said.
"Neither did I," Mrs. Polniaczek concurred.
"We could try to operate to fix the bleeding and relieve the swelling, but even without the brain tumor, there would be a high chance that she wouldn't survive the surgery. With the tumor, it's almost a complete certainty that any attempts at operating would kill her. I'm so sorry, Mrs. Polniaczek, but I do not believe your daughter will live much longer."
"No!" Tootie cried out at the top of her lungs, and then she and Natalie just clung to each other and sobbed while Mrs. Polniaczek, Blair, and I just stood there in utter shock, as still as statues, unable to believe our ears.
"Are you saying that there's nothing you can do for her? Nothing at all?" Mrs. Polniaczek asked in a shaky voice.
The doctor shook his head and said sadly, "I'm very sorry, Mrs. Polniaczek. I truly am."
He left then, and we all just stood there and clung to each other and cried.
The girls and I stayed at the hospital with Jo and her mother over the next several hours, and finally, after it was dark, I took the girls back home. After we had supper and cleaned up the kitchen and the cafeteria, we were so drained that we all just collapsed into bed. It wasn't long before sleep overtook me. And some very unpleasant dreams.
All night long, I dreamt of Jo. I experienced her short eighteen years of life from her perspective. I was given a prophetic glimpse into what Jo's relationships with her parents were really like behind closed doors. What little bit of hurt, fear, and pain I saw from Jo was merely the tip of the iceberg. There was and always had been a sea of agony going on beneath the surface, and just because it was emotional pain and not physical pain did not make it any less horrific. On the surface, it really did appear to all of us that Rose Polniaczek was this selfless, hardworking saint who was busting her tail to provide for her daughter's education and give her a chance at a better life. But beneath the surface, it was just the opposite. I experienced years of fights, guilt, blame, and torment as I lived life in Jo's skin. I always knew that Jo suffered from a guilt complex, but until that prophetic dream from Jesus forced me to walk a mile in Jo's shoes, I had no idea just how bad it really was. As it turned out, Rose Polniaczek never accepted any responsibility for her own life choices herself. She always blamed Jo for the fact that she had to work two jobs and wasn't able to get a college education herself, and she basically made Jo feel guilty for merely existing and breathing. She placed the most horrific emotional burdens on Jo and made Jo feel like she had to be the parent and be responsible for Rose, as if Rose were the child. And who was there for Jo emotionally? Who was parenting Jo? Who was taking care of Jo? Nobody. And that seemed to be perfectly fine with the rest of the world. And when she was abandoned and betrayed by her father on top of that, God knows she never got an ounce of help from me. I actually had the nerve and the audacity to feel sorry for Charlie, not for Jo, because he was a fellow parent, and I was playing for my team. May God forgive me.
As the painful dreams continued through the night, I finally began to get it through my thick skull that Jo was right about me. I did have a very real problem with harboring prejudice against young people in my heart. Whenever a parent did anything to hurt one of the girls, I almost constantly sided with the parent, no matter what, and I almost always assumed that it was one of the girls who was in the wrong. The vast majority of the time, I never even tried to understand my girls' perspective. As usual, I was a parent playing for the parents' team because of my own personal bias against young people. And unbeknownst to me, it was that bias, that prejudice, that enabled Jo's parents to continue their relentless selfishness and emotional abuse of her. The Holy Spirit made it painfully clear to me in the series of dreams I had that night that Jo's brain tumor was caused by all the years of emotional abuse she had suffered at the hands of her parents – and He made it clear that it was also caused by all of my years of enabling that abuse by constantly siding with her parents over her. By me never giving her the validation and respect she desperately needed and deserved. Jo was an abandoned, very badly hurting little child left out in the cold, and she came to me, begging me for the warmth she needed. And what did I do? Did I give her warmth and love and validation and respect? Did I give her what she needed at all? No. I didn't give that dear child the warmth she deserved. Instead, because of my own stupid prejudice and self-righteousness and arrogance, I gave her ice. Through my arrogance and my stupidity, I didn't alleviate Jo's suffering; I intensified it. I only made it worse. So much worse.
Those dreams really made me think long and hard about the terrible attitude I've harbored in my heart against Jo. Because of my own self-righteousness and arrogance, I had the audacity to dare to look down through my nose on Jo whenever she would try to run away from her problems. It was nothing sheer, utter, disgusting arrogance and pride that caused me to think to myself, "I'm so much better than Jo because I don't run away from my problems like she does!" I never once stopped to think that the reason why she would always try to run to protect herself from further pain was because she'd already been exposed to more pain than she could bear. Yes, I've been through a lot of painful things in my life, but nothing can compare to the sheer agony of growing up knowing that one or both of your own parents do not love you. That's something I couldn't even begin to understand. And instead of giving Jo the warmth, understanding, empathy, and respect she deserved, I arrogantly and stupidly made everything so much worse, and I dared to look down on her. Most of me didn't feel that way, of course. As a matter of fact, those feelings were buried so deeply within my heart that I didn't even know they existed. I had no idea that there was a small part of me that actually felt that way about Jo until all of this happened. Then it was all finally brought to the surface, and the Almighty forced me to take a good, hard look at myself. And I was repulsed at what I saw. I had no idea that such pride, arrogance, prejudice, and self-righteousness existed within me, and when I saw it for the first time, I truly abhorred myself.
When I woke up at about five o'clock the next morning, I wiped the tears from my eyes, and I went downstairs. When I came into the lounge, to my surprise, I found Blair standing there in her robe, gown, and slippers.
"Can't you sleep, Blair?" I asked.
Blair shook her head and responded, "Not really. I guess you're having trouble sleeping too, huh?"
After a brief pause, I proceeded to pour my heart out to Blair about all the dreams I had. I was a total wreck that morning and I just couldn't hold it in. I told her everything.
"As much as I want to believe that it's just my imagination and not the Holy Spirit convicting me about my self-righteousness and prejudice and pride, I know deep down that it is the Holy Spirit, and I know I've done some heinous things without even realizing it."
Blair remained silent for a long moment, and then she asked, "Do you remember when my mother came here for Parents' Night a few years ago, Mrs. Garrett?"
"Of course I do."
"I found out that my mother was planning a romantic date with Mr. Branch, a married man. And rightfully so, I was devastated. And when I confronted her about it, she hit me, and you didn't say a word about it. You never once said that my mother was wrong to be going out on a date with a married man. You never once said that she was wrong to set such a terrible example for me. You acted like I was in the wrong for calling her out on her terrible behavior that was breaking my heart, yet you seemed to be perfectly okay with her hitting me. You've always had that double standard against us, Mrs. Garrett. Always. You really do seem to believe that if a parent or an adult does something to hurt us or offend us, we don't have any right whatsoever to call them out on it. Yet you get to call us out when we do something wrong. Can you not see how hurtful and unfair that is?" Blair asked as she kept her eyes firmly locked with mine.
"Until now, no, I didn't see it. I didn't see it at all. And I'm ashamed of myself for not seeing it. You're right, Blair. You're absolutely right. I have been doing you girls wrong all these years. I have harbored prejudice in my heart against you girls simply because your age is a lower number than mine, and there's no excuse for that, and I'm sorry, Blair," I told her honestly as tears started streaming down my cheeks. "I'm so very sorry. I just wish that I could apologize to Jo, too."
Blair nodded and said, "I know you do."
"It wasn't until I had those dreams that I realized that there really was this small part of my heart I didn't even know was there that was looking down on Jo, thinking that I was so far above her and so much better than her because I didn't run from my problems like she did. I had no idea that there was a part of me that was so arrogant and self-righteous. I may not have spent my life running from hurtful things like Jo has, but that's only because I've had the luxury of never having to experience the level of agony that Jo has constantly endured inside. After going through the agony of never truly being loved by either of her parents, it's no wonder she would always try to run from things that would only increase her already great pain. I'll never forgive myself for being so judgmental towards her; for daring to look down on her and believe that I was better than she was. No, I was never better than Jo. Jo was always better than me. She's an extraordinary person simply for putting up with her DNA donors after the emotional hell they both put her through. And she's also an extraordinary person for choosing not to hate me when I only enabled her DNA donors' emotional abuse and refused to give her respect and validation.
"Mrs. Polniaczek told me at the hospital yesterday that one of the reasons why she divorced Mr. Polniaczek was because of how violent he could become whenever he got drunk. He hit her a few times, and it was when he started hitting her that she filed for a divorce. But she never told Jo about it. Jo had no way of knowing when she went to her father's apartment that she was walking into such a dangerous situation. And I had no way of knowing that either, but even so, it doesn't change the fact that it was I who pushed Jo into going to her father's apartment when she clearly didn't want to. Just like Mrs. Polniaczek had been emotionally abusing Jo for years with relentless guilt-trips, Mr. Polniaczek also emotionally abused Jo simply by choosing not to be there. By choosing to abandon her throughout her childhood. It's time people realized, it's time I realized, that abandonment is abuse. Abandonment and abuse are two sides of the same coin. And when I butted my nose into Jo's personal business where it didn't belong, and I pushed her and her father into having a relationship again, despite the fact that Jo didn't want to risk getting hurt again, I only enabled Mr. Polniaczek to continue his emotional abuse of Jo. The Holy Spirit made it painfully clear to me in my dreams tonight, Blair, that that brain tumor is the result of years of emotional abuse. I may not be responsible for all of the emotional abuse that Jo suffered that resulted in her brain tumor, but God knows I'm responsible for some of it. And if Jo dies, it will be not only Mr. and Mrs. Polniaczek who have killed – no, murdered – Jo. In the eyes of the Almighty, I will be just as responsible as they are, perhaps even more so, because I enabled their abuse. When I chose to constantly side with them over Jo, I was enabling them and making it easier for them to emotionally abuse Jo, and I didn't even realize it. May God forgive me for doing such an evil thing."
After a long pause, Blair said, "I guess this is where I'm supposed to come along and say, 'Come on, now, Mrs. Garrett. Don't be so hard on yourself.' But I can't and I won't say that, Mrs. Garrett, because if I'm going to be one hundred percent honest with you, I think you're right about every word you just said. I've been abandoned by not one but three fathers, so I know exactly what Jo has been going through all her life. When Mr. Polniaczek returned, I was as bad as you were about trying push and guilt-trip Jo into accepting him back into her life again when she clearly wasn't ready to do so. But we had a lot of long talks about it and I soon realized that I was wrong, and I apologized to Jo. And when you say that there was a part of your heart that was self-righteous and arrogant, that looked down on Jo for running from her problems without really understanding what she was going through, you're dead-on. I alwayssensed that arrogance and self-righteousness from you when it came to Jo. I could sense how much you looked down through your nose on Jo whenever she would try to run away from her problems; how you thought you were so much better than she was. And I can promise you, Mrs. Garrett, that if I sensed that arrogant and hurtful attitude from you, Jo definitely sensed it. There's no way you could have known that Mr. Polniaczek was going to physically abuse Jo when she went to see him at his apartment. That much is true. But it doesn't change the fact that you were wrong to try to push her into going to see him when she didn't want to, and it doesn't change the fact that you were wrong to sweep all of the Polniaczeks' emotional abuse of Jo under the rug and enable them all these years. Even if you didn't know better, you should have known better, and you know that. I'm not exactly on friendly terms with the Almighty. I've been furious at Him ever since He allowed my parents' divorce to go through when I was a kid. But it might be that God is using this to teach you an important lesson. It might be that He's using this terrible event in our lives to teach you how prejudice against young people enables child abuse and can even play a part in the death of an abused child."
With more tears streaming down my face, I looked at Blair and nodded. I certainly didn't like what she was saying to me, but I listened to her because deep down in my heart of hearts, I knew that Blair was right.
After a sigh, I locked my gaze with Blair's once again, and I told her, "It says in the book of Proverbs that the wounds of a friend are faithful, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. And as always, the Bible is right. It takes a real friend to tell you the cold, hard truth about yourself, even when they know it's going to hurt. An enemy will deceive you with kisses, tell you only what they know you want to hear, because at the end of the day, they don't really care about you. It takes a real friend to tell you something they know you don't want to hear, if they know that saying it to you is in your best interests. What you said just now…I know it wasn't easy for you to say, and it was even harder for me to hear, but at the end of the day, I know you're right, Blair. And I thank you for having the guts to stand there and tell me what I needed to hear instead of what I wanted to hear. Thank you for being a true friend."
Blair nodded, and then she kissed my cheek and gave me a big hug, and afterwards, she went back upstairs. And when I was alone in the lounge, I got down on my knees and asked Jesus to forgive me for all the years that I enabled the Polniaczeks' emotional abuse of Jo, and for all my years of harboring prejudice in my heart against young people. And I repented with all my heart and soul.
Mrs. Polniaczek kept Jo on life support for several more weeks before she finally accepted what the doctors kept telling her, that there was no longer any hope. As a Catholic, Jo had struggled all her life with the false idea that she had to earn and maintain her salvation. We talked about it many times, and thanks be to God, I was able to help her realize that she was saved only by trusting in the death of Christ at the cross, His burial, and resurrection to save her from her sins, and by nothing else. Not by praying the rosary. Not by going to confession. Not by doing penance. Not by anything other than sheer faith in the shed blood of Christ to pay for her all her sins. I was blessed by God to get to be there, to witness it when Jo truly trusted in Jesus for the first time. She cried tears of joy. It was as if a ten-ton boulder had been lifted from her shoulders. It was beautiful. And on that morning in late January, as I stroked Jo's hand, with Blair and Mrs. Polniaczek standing in the background, the doctor turned off the machines. And it was then that I felt the presence of Christ, Himself, so strongly in the room. I knew that day, beyond a doubt, that Jesus was going to be there for her, that He was anxious to receive her into His embrace, into His care, forever.
I bent down in those moments, and I whispered into Jo's ear, "I'm so sorry, Jo, my love. You deserved so much better. I love you so much, and I'm so very sorry."
Miraculously, in that instant, I actually felt Jo squeeze my hand. And then, just a second later, the beeping of the heart monitor in the background became a high-pitched whine. And in that instant, I knew it was over. Jo had easily passed over from this life to the next, where no one would ever be able to hurt her again.
I later realized that Jo squeezing my hand in the very moment before she left us was her way and God's way of letting me know that they both had forgiven me for the grave evil that I'd done. And make no mistake. All my years of enabling the Polniaczeks' emotional abuse of Jo through my prejudice against young people was a gravely evil sin that cannot and must not ever be excused away or swept under the rug. I made it easier for Jo's parents to selfishly use her and abuse her and abandon her. Both her parents were abusers, and it was I who refused to call them on it simply because I was a fellow parent, and I was playing for my team. It was Jesus, Himself, who said that any professing believer who hates his brother in his heart is a murderer, and through their years of emotional abuse and abandonment of Jo, the Polniaczeks proved that they hated their daughter in their hearts and did not love her. And it was I who turned a willful blind eye to that. I enabled their abuse, their murderous hatred of Jo, for years. I made it easier for them to murder her emotionally, which in turn, ultimately resulted in her physical murder. Mr. and Mrs. Polniaczek both murdered their daughter, and they will stand before Christ, Himself one day and answer for what they've done. And, God forgive me, I murdered Jo as well. I, too, am responsible for her death. May God have mercy on me.
I imagine that most adults and parents in this world who harbor prejudice in their hearts against young people are not even aware of it, just as I wasn't for so many years. And for the small percentage of adults and parents out there who actually are aware that they harbor prejudice against young people in their hearts, they've probably convinced themselves that it's only a "minor" sin and not a big deal. Well let me tell you something. It IS a big deal. A VERY BIG DEAL. Children all over the world DIE because of this. I MURDERED a young person because of this. God only knows how many children, both inside and outside the womb, have DIED because other people's prejudice against them as young people only made it easier for their DNA donors to continue abusing them and murdering them in various ways.
Having both Christ's and Jo's forgiveness does soothe my heart a great deal, but even with that wonderful balm for my soul, I still must bear the agony of knowing that I played a significant role in Jo's murder. Not death. Murder. I was the one who enabled Mr. and Mrs. Polniaczek to continue murdering Jo on the inside every day. I was the one who made it easier for them to selfishly abuse Jo by my refusal to call them out on their emotional abuse and abandonment. And it is I who will have to carry that agonizing knowledge every day for the rest of my life. Blair actually told me shortly after Jo's passing that Jo had said to her once that she felt that I was the closest thing to a mother she'd ever had; that she often felt closer to me than she did to Mrs. Polniaczek. Knowing that Jo actually saw me as a mother has greatly humbled me, and I know it is an honor I never deserved, nor ever will deserve. While I was stupidly and arrogantly daring to look down through my nose on her, she was being a better human being than I could ever hope to be. I yearn for the day that I can be reunited with Jo in heaven, and even though it is an honor I will never deserve, I will always hope that Jo can find it in her heart to give me another chance to be the mother to her in the next life that I should have been to her in this one. And even though I know I don't deserve it, I still cling to the hope that it will happen when we are reunited with each other in heaven, and it is that hope that keeps me going and will continue to keep me going every day for the rest of my earthly life.