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It Goes On

By Anonymous

I've almost written this post so many times. If I slept with my laptop by the bed, it would have been published around 3 a.m. after awaking from a nightmare many months ago. But in the daylight, when my life is full and busy and almost impossibly wonderful, I can't find the words or the will to go back to a darker place.

Our Nightmare has been over for more than a year. It still pops up in my life through the occasional google search for "DCFS falsely accused" and the even more occasional email from someone trapped in their own DCFS hell. It's always hard to write back, but I feel it's my way of paying all of you back for the support you gave me.

It comes back when Landon has bruised shins from tripping on the steps of our back deck and JP asks if it's okay to send him to daycare. It comes back when Landon is holding his wrist like it hurts and JP and I are both afraid to take him to urgent care. It came back in a physical rush when my dad told me about a coworker who was investigated and nearly accused for injuries his infant son received after falling off a changing table. I was at work and thought I was fine, only to nearly faint in a senior associate's office ten minutes later with a pounding heart and sweaty palms. It comes back in the occasional nightmare where I'm back in those scary days and I don't know what's going to happen, and what did happen- our happy ending, was only a dream. In a few of those Landon is two years old, rather than two months old, and it is so, so much worse.

But, for those who find this site because of the DCFS story, most of the time the memories of those weeks are absent from my thoughts without effort. I'll never forget what happened, but the recollections aren't as strong and they are easily redirected. JP and I rarely talk about it- not because we're trying to avoid it, as we did in the weeks right after the investigation ended, but simply because it doesn't come up. Despite everything, when I look back on it from here I still feel relief more than anything else. It could have been so much worse. Our DCFS investigator might not have believed us, we might not have found the pediatric orthopedist to read Landon's x-rays and agree whole heartedly that his injuries could not have come from abuse. The district attorney may not have declined to take our case. Even though I'd like to be angry that it happened at all, all I can be is grateful that it ended so completely.

At the wedding I attended in D.C. last weekend I spoke with law school classmates I hadn't seen since 3L year. Each of them inquired about Landon, asking how he was doing in such a gravely concerned voice that I was taken aback. It took me moment to understand their tone- after all, the Landon of today is a robust, ridiculously healthy 2-year-old boy who sleeps 12 hours at night and never gets sick. As I relayed this to one of them, her eyes filled up with tears and she said, "So it really is all over." And then in a rush, "God [LL], that was so awful."

It is. It was. One of my favorite quotes is from Robert Frost, "In three words I can sum up everything I learned about life -- It goes on." And it does.

Full post as published by Lag Liv on September 22, 2009 (boomark / email).