Concrete Angel

I just read this story on cnn.com. It really disturbed me on several levels.

The detail about the boy's tiny black, lime, and grey Skechers upset me because that's a perfect description of my own son's sneakers.

But that's not the thing that upset me the most. What bothered me was wondering where this so-called community that has poured out its heart and emptied its collective pocketbook in an effort to bury the child and buy new lighting for their park was while he was being murdered and probably abused beforehand.

Maybe if they had offered that same sense of reaching out and providing support to his family before he was murdered, he would still be alive.

How many kids today would have avoided being murdered if a neighbor, cousin, friend, teacher, or colleague or government agency gave an over-stressed parent an outlet for venting his or her anger or offered a parenting class, or took the baby for an afternoon so the mother could sleep?

I am not excusing or dismissing the fact that anyone who murders a child is acting in a monstrous manner.

I just fail to see the purpose in expressing outrage and collecting donations after a baby boy has been senselessly murdered. It seems that energy and those resources would have been put to better use trying to figure out some way to ensure that something like that never happens.