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Since we had Stella I truly understand what people said to me for years before I had children, “you’ll never know the love you can give until you have a child.”  It is clear to me now how much you can really love someone.  It’s a love you can’t even explain.  An unconditional love.

The past few days I’ve really thought about this a lot.  A recent story in the news here in England has been haunting me.  Terrorizing me actually.  I heard the story in the car on the way back from Liverpool.

A man had been charged and sentenced to life for snapping his 16 month old baby daughter’s spine.  Hearing the story on the radio was heart wrenching and painful just to listen to.  How could anyone have the strength and anger to snap a child’s spine?  And it was her own father? What parent could be so evil and uncaring to a poor helpless child?

Well on Saturday I actually read the paper and got the entire story.  This little girl had been mistreated and abused since the day she was born.  Malnutrition and severe dehydration (she weighed a little over 13 pounds when she died, a very low weight for that age, Stella weighed that much at a mere 6 months) was the likely reason that this evil man was able to break the little girl (Amy’s) spine.

Amy also had a broken arm, leg and ribs and bruised terrible.  Amy hadn’t been seen by a Dr. since February.  Her mother lived with her father who was also pregnant.  The mother only got a 1 year sentence.

I am now haunted with the thought of what her unborn baby sister or brother will go thru.

Mercifully, according to the doctors, Amy died instantly and suffered no additional pain.  Given that her mere 16 months of life were spent in pain I can only hope she’s in a safer and happier place.

I wanted to write about this as it has really impacted me.  I look at our sweet Stella and think I don’t know what I’d do without her and am so thankful to have her in my and her Daddy’s life.  We shower her with so much love each day.

So I dedicate this blog post to Amy.  I hope that in some way she knows that there is someone out there who cares about her and is sending her a little bit of love.

Hug your children.  Give them kisses (in our cases hundreds a day).  Play with your children.  Listen to your children.  Enjoy your children.  All they need is LOVE.

If you don’t have children, I’m sure there are some “little people” in your life in some way that you can probably make a difference in making sure they know they are loved.