Lamentation for Zahra

She was ten years old when the light in Zahra's soulful eyes was extinguished. This little miss of serene expression and freckled face was denied the three score and ten years that the Bible describes as "...the days of our years..."

The days of our years are threescore and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow; for soon it is gone and we fly away. King James Bible-Psalm 90:10

I believe her spirit, vibrant and pure, released in a nano-second from her newly broken body, flew straight up through the North Carolina night to the all encompassing safety and love she was denied in her Hickory, North Carolina abode. Down here on the blue planet in Caldwell County, North Carolina, USA, before flames and lies blazed forth as if ignited with a fire pot from hell, the little body that carried her through the rigors of cancer and the challenges of hearing loss was somehow cruelly torn asunder and scattered through the rural landscape.

Before the first law enforcement officer came to a stop at her at her house ( this was no home ); before the forged ransom notes and blase, insipid 911 call were spinning round the news cycle; and before Zahra's poignantly hopeful, uptilted face was featured on Nancy Grace et al; she was robbed, and make no mistake, we were robbed, a decade in, of a worthy warrior's life.

Someone, somewhere, sometime, showed this girl child kindness. There is an earnestness, a hopefulness, and a watchfulness in some of her photographs, especially the ones where someone, perhaps health care workers, seem to show concern and interest. There are resilient children in this world who cling to their vision of the future with a tenacity and certainty that defies the weight of their deprivations. Their dreams, like little burdock riders on a garment of wool, resist the hand that pulls and tears; but burdock, as dreams and even life, can be crumbled and broken down.

Zahra's eyes may have been blackened, as some have belatedly intimated, by the very hands that were meant to care for her every need; she may have been confined and even locked in her room for cruel stretches, as some have now impotently alleged, by the very hands that were meant to enliven and celebrate her presence in this world, but she had not given up. She knew she was worthy of rescue and she was waiting.

She waited as so many children do, and as so many children will, for her world to right itself, and she was grateful, as illumined by her beneficent smile, for every tender word, every welcoming gesture, and every genial touch. The furniture store manager who placed her hand on Zahra's shoulder and called her sweetheart as she eased by Zahra while the child watched cartoons on a display television may not have been just one of the last people to see her alive; she may have been Zahra's last brush with decency. She remembers, as will we all, Zahra's ineffable smile.

The threads of an adequate lifeline to save Zahra were braided tightly and in place. The thing about a lifeline is you must keep throwing it out until the victim has a secure grip. When Zahra attended the elementary school in Hudson, North Carolina, a neighbor(s), a teacher(s) or some combination of both called DSS and reported her potential abuse. According to a neighbor of the Hickory, North Carolina house where Zahra spent her last months after moving from Hudson, North Carolina, a case worker visited Mrs. Baker, Zahra's step-parent. Did DSS check to ensure that Zahra was enrolled in school, or if she was the recipient of an adequate home school curriculum? All home-schools must be registered with the North Carolina Department of Non-Public Education. Did they ask the neighbor if she had witnessed any suspicious activity? If not why not? This neighbor, as did some of Zahra's family members, had plenty to say to the press. One report has a neighbor describing Mrs. Baker's hand as injured from the force with which she allegedly hit Zahra's prosthetic leg.

Many days into the search for Zahra we learn of her Australian mother who entrusted her baby to the father and his parents while she recovered from post-partum depression. She claims to have endeavored throughout the years to recover Zahra, but was foiled by the frequent moves of her ex-husband, Mr. Baker. His parents were by many accounts loving to the girl; Zahra was allegedly devastated by the move to the United States. One cannot help but contemplate why the paternal grandparents did not simply relay Zahra's address. If the details presented in the news are factual, Zahra's mother's quest to ascertain her daughter's whereabouts was secured just three days before Mr. Baker's disturbing 911 call. Was little Zahra's fate sealed because a mom's listening ears were imminent?

The horrible fates of myriads of children around the globe are nauseatingly familiar in the daily revelations and harrowing regularity of their suffering. The injustices are not unique, but the children are. Thousands of years ago a king sent his soldiers to a dusty hamlet with orders to put all the male children two and under to the sword. As these babies and toddlers were torn from breast or crib, sleep or play, their brother in spirit was carried safely into Egypt by the young couple whose sure escape was just ahead of the wailing and crying, the lamentations and keenings of the parents in Bethlehem.

Zahra is lost to us unless we honor her memory. May her brief life and lonely end foster a hindrance to evil and a path to escape for other children for whom danger lurks, just as the babes of Bethlehem secured haven for the tiny sojourner to Egypt. In America we believe our children deserve an education. Let's begin with the abyss into which Zahra plunged once she left the watchful eyes of her Hudson teachers for what must have been lonely, debilitating days of callously imposed isolation. Zahra likely wasn't taught a tittle or an iota of the elementary subjects her peers were proffered.

I home-schooled our daughter from third through eighth grades. Each summer I outlined her curriculum for the fall, purchased the materials, and then filed the proper paperwork with the State of Maine and the local Superintendent's Office. As allowed by state statute she attended her school's music classes and programs. Every paper, every test, every essay, every quiz, every article of minutiae is filed by grade in a large sturdy box and kept in our attic. She is a Junior in college in Boston and thriving. It is my hope that when someone in any state pulls their child from school, especially after an accusation of abuse, a priority investigation be mandated for both the child's physical welfare and proof of their educational status.

We must report our concerns for children, when we have solid grounds, with the same diligence Zahra's searchers expended as they searched the rural ground scape for her remains. Perhaps Zahra will be laid to rest in Australia where she enjoyed, it seems, sunshine, play, hugs and friends. I believe there are thousands of us who have rested heads to pillows at night in these last weeks who have wished Zahra was our own little girl.

When I was Zahra's age and awoke on Sunday mornings, I heard our Dad downstairs strumming on his guitar. He was a woodsman, a tall, rugged man with big hands that were often stained with pitch or chainsaw grease. A gentle, rosy-cheeked man, he would sit there with an incongruously small pick in his mitt of a hand and play and sing country songs from the era of Hank Snow. Lately I've remembered a chorus from a Snow song penned by Cy Coban and Mel Foree.

I'm nobody's child

Nobody's child

I'm like a flower left growing wild

No mommy's kisses and no daddy's smile

Nobody wants me I'm nobody's child

We want you Zahra. We want you back with the dull ache of innocence squandered, goodness crushed, and opportunity lost.