Justice for Jayde

I hadn’t thought about Jayde in years.

The toddler was dead when her mother carried her blanket-wrapped body into the Alpena hospital emergency department. She’d been in and out of consciousness on the couch for days, her skin patchworked with bruises and her brain swollen from trauma. 

Don’t call for an ambulance, her mother’s boyfriend demanded. She’s fine. We’re fine. Everything is normal. We don’t need help.

But the girl died, and the adults who caused her death now sit in prison, he with a 55 to 90 year sentence for second-degree murder and first-degree child abuse, she serving 15 to 40 years for letting it happen.

I listened to the police scanner in the newsroom the night police closed in on Aaron Trout, wanted and considered dangerous after his girlfriend brought little Jayde’s body to the hospital and sent the ER into lockdown mode. I reported on the court case that ensued, and on Trout’s attempts to regain custody of his own children from jail while facing murder charges in Jayde’s death. I read Jayde’s horrific autopsy report, struggling to find words to describe the marks where the toddler had been duct taped to a potty chair or left to sleep on a cold porch with her hands tied behind her back ― words to explain the dented bone where her head impacted the wall as Trout swung her by her ankles in a rage.

I visited the backwoods house where Jayde died and interviewed residents in the nearby quiet-looking town who agreed nothing bad happened there … except when it did. I reported on the mother’s inability to leave her controlling boyfriend, even to report her own daughter’s abuse.

After one court hearing, I spoke to Jayde’s father, from the Detroit area, who wore a t-shirt emblazoned with “Justice for Jayde” and smiling photos of his daughter. “This is just what we do downstate,” he shrugged when I asked about the shirt.

For most of my life, I’d lived in places that didn’t need “Justice for …” shirts and signs. People in my safe, small towns didn’t get violently killed. Other acts of violence stayed behind closed doors, where people like me didn’t have to think about them.

Since Jayde's death, I’ve seen the"Justice" phrase used frequently. Justice for Brynn. Justice for Dee. Absolutely, I think. Let’s get the creeps who did these horrible things. Let’s give them what they deserve, or at least as close to it as the law allows.

But is that really justice?

Maybe. But maybe justice goes beyond catching the bad guy and focuses on stopping the next bad act.

Jayde came to mind today as I typed up a story for The Brooklyn Exponent about a Michigan Court of Appeals decision in a Lenawee County case. A mother and father had appealed a local court’s decision to take away their parental rights because of ongoing domestic violence, drug abuse, and undertreated mental health issues in the home.

A year of attempts at reunification didn’t lead to change in the parents’ behavior, so the court said they can’t be parents anymore. Their daughter is now flourishing with her foster family.

The mother in that case reported fearing for her daughter’s safety if they stayed with the father, who hit when he was angry. They stayed anyway.

Had a family member not stepped in to report what she saw in the home, the child might still be witnessing abuse. Or experiencing abuse. Or worse, I thought as I typed my story, thinking of the limp arm dangling from a blanket at an Alpena hospital.

Such stories fill me with sadness and with rage. Most of all, they make me feel helpless. I don’t know how to help the next Jayde, hidden away in a home I’ll never see. I don’t know how to help the mom who knows her home is unsafe but doesn’t know how to leave it. I want someone ― some Children’s Protective Services worker, some police agency, some lawmaker ― to find a fix and find it now because the problem is so much bigger than we see. One headline about one abused child in one dysfunctional home represents a hundred children, a hundred homes where the hurt hides behind pulled shades.

I can’t live like that, growing ever more numb to sad stories because I feel powerless to play a role in them. But what’s one nondescript, non-superhero person to do?

Notice, that’s what.

Notice the kid who acts out and gets aggressive with her playmates, who talks less than she used to or seems sad or reluctant to go home. The kid who might be watching adults abuse one another at home. Who might endure weekly visits with her biological parents who act like they don’t want her.

Notice the woman who cancels plans and avoids messages, who seems to be in constant contact with her significant other. The one who apologies frequently and seems more anxious than usual. The one who might be in an abusive relationship she doesn’t know how to escape.

And then what?

I don’t know. I don’t know how to solve the Big Problems any more than anyone else.

But I do know that it takes all of us. If we all saw that Jayde’s mom needed help, maybe she would have gotten it. If we all see that the bratty preschooler might be more than just the class problem, maybe we’ll surround him with the adult support and connection he needs to counteract the troubles he shouldn’t have to deal with at home.

Maybe if we remember that the developmentally delayed child may have witnessed her father hitting her mother, we can give her an extra smile, an extra layer of patience and encouragement. Maybe if we are conscious that many homes don’t offer the support ours does, we can build up our own sons and daughters to be advocates for the battle-scarred student the next desk over.

Maybe if we see, and take the small steps that are within our power, fewer hurt kids will grow up to hurt their own kids.

We can’t save Jayde. But we aren’t helpless to help the hurting right in our own circle, our own neighborhood, our own family. Horrible headlines don’t need to make us cringe and close our eyes. They can prod us to action.

Go help a kid. 

You could be saving a life.

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If you believe a child is in immediate danger, call 911.

If you think a child is being abused or neglected — or if you are a child being mistreated — call or text 800-422-4453 right away. This is the ChildHelp National Child Abuse Hotline, available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They can tell you how to make a report. Find more information about identifying and addressing child abuse at childhelphotline.org.

For information about how you can help counteract traumatic childhood experiences, visit apaf.org/our-programs/justice/free-resources/what-are-pce-s.

To learn about supporting someone you suspect may be impacted by domestic violence, visit thehotline.org.

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The photo with this post depicts Jayde's dad holding a picture of his daughter. I took the photo, but it's the property of The Alpena News. I'm using it with their permission. (Thanks, Steve.)

55 and Alive

What would you do if you knew your next birthday would be your last?

Back when I was in my late 20s, my mom turned 55 on a cool April day. “Fifty-five and alive!” I remember her saying. She had stage four colon cancer, and the doctors were starting to run out of treatment options. A month later, they’d tell her it was time to take that last vacation. Not long after that, I stood beside her casket, singing “Praise God, From Whom All Blessings Flow” under the cemetery canopy with the balloons she’d requested for the occasion stirring in the breeze behind me.

Mom’s death shifted the way I saw life. As I aged into my 30s and then my 40s, I found myself tracking time with an end date in mind. A person lives until they are 55, and that’s all they’re promised, a voice in my head kept telling me. 

Life became more urgent as the years passed. You’re not doing it all. You’re not accomplishing enough. You’re running out of time, the voice said.

And now, here I am, turning 55 myself. And utterly flabbergasted at how happy that makes me. 

A year ago, the day before my 54th birthday, I had a mammogram that would turn into a cancer diagnosis. It came as no surprise. I was the same age Mom was when she learned she had cancer, and I’d long expected myself to walk the same path she did. 

Except I didn’t. Chemo and a mastectomy and radiation have made the past year interesting, to be sure. But I went through it knowing I’d come out the other end OK. That was a reassurance Mom never had. She knew when she declared “55 and alive!” that she probably wouldn’t see her 56th birthday.

And yet, on her last birthday, that lovely woman made her declaration with real joy. Real hope. Real zest for life, whatever that life looked like.

In the months that followed, she and Dad went to Boston and watched whales. She kept meeting with the “Lunch Bunch” she’d started at church to give older folks something to do. She kept hugging the little kids who flocked to her after her decades of teaching. As her strength failed and the tumor grew in her thinning frame, she kept showing up at church on Sunday mornings, never missing until the day before she died in her living room recliner, my brother and I kneeling at her side and holding her hands as she left us for Heaven.

I didn’t know my mom as well as I now wish I had. I was in my 20s when she died, self-absorbed and focused on my own future, her first grandchild growing inside me. But as I type about her in a coffee shop, marking my own 55 and Alive day, I feel her beside me, nudging me toward life. And joy. And doing what matters most, because time is not a given.

I recently rediscovered a list I started about a year ago, titled, “Things I love.” It’s a scattershot sampling, not nearly as long as it could be, including the smell of tomato plants, listening to my kids, and rescuing bugs from being squished. At the top of the list is my very favorite go-to activity: getting lost on country roads. The list makes me happy. And it reminds me that joy is not a matter of chance. We can choose it. We can seek it out.

On a recent back-road drive, sneaking peeks of beguiling woods and little streams and contemplating my coming significant birthday, I found myself laughing with astonishment. 

I could be dead. 

But I’m not. 

That’s so freaking amazing.

A fire in my belly urges me to go, do, accomplish, fix problems, change the world. Don’t get a wrong picture of me, here – I’m no superachiever. I’m as lazy as the next guy and think Big Thoughts far more often than I do Big Things. But the fire still burns, telling me I gotta do more, gotta be more.

And that’s true, in its way. A strong, safe world is an all-play, and we all have roles in bettering our communities and the lives of those around us.

But doing more and being more can walk alongside joy. They can come with peace, and strength, and deep breaths and drives in the country and cat cuddles and noticing the sunlight making sparkles on the walls. I can lead a purposeful, meaningful life and still marvel daily at being alive, at having time to do one more thing, love one more person, rescue one more bug.

It doesn’t matter how old you are. You have Things to Do. And you have time – at least today – to do them. Isn’t that just the most amazing thing? Revel in the joy of it, friends. And when our time runs out, well then, we praise God, from whom all blessings flow, that we had this time, to do. To be. To live.

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Because I could, and because it sounded fun, I designed a “55 and Alive” sticker that I uploaded to the website Redbubble. It’s a site made for creators to be able to sell their artwork to others, but I use it to make and print stickers I want for myself. There’s probably a bunch of other ways to do the same thing. I mention it not to promote Redbubble, but because I figured someone else might like knowing it’s possible to make your own stickers and buy them from yourself. It’s fun. Here’s my sticker, if you want to see it.

A coffee shop in the rain

The weather forecast called for rain, but it still took me by surprise. Outside my coffee shop window, tiny rivers run down the sides of the street. A woman with a blue umbrella trudges through the parking lot across the street. A passing mail truck kicks up a mist, its wheels whooshing wetly.

Rain comes, a necessary gift to the land, cleansing and refreshing and offering excuses to curl up on the couch with a book and a cat.

Necessary, yes. But sometimes it’s sad. Like today. 

Today the rain is sad because I am sad. 

I don’t know why I’m sad. Nothing’s wrong. I’m just empty inside, or too full, I’m not sure. I just know I’m not OK.

I don’t feel like I have permission to not be OK. My life is so easy. So full of privileges. I’m loved. I’m supported. I’m healthy. I have the time and the means to sit in a coffee shop with a Hotty Scotty latte and watch the rain and type about my feelings. 

People I love are fighting really, really big life battles. They deserve to be sad, and scared, and angry. It feels wrong for me to claim those feelings when my load is so much easier to carry.

I have no reason to be sad. I don’t deserve to be sad.

But I am.

The rain will let up, and I’ll be fine tomorrow, or even later today. For now, though, I’ve got a knot in my heart, and I’m struggling.

I’ve been avoiding writing blog posts lately to put more of my writing energies into the book I want to write. I needed to write this post today because I needed somewhere to put my sadness. But I also wanted to write it because I suspect a lot of people walk around in the rain, feeling feelings they think it’s not OK to have. 

And maybe it’ll help someone else to know that I’m sad, too.

A few months ago, on a day when my cancer treatments hung especially heavy on my shoulders, I ordered a hot drink at a coffee shop that employs and raises money for women facing huge life obstacles. The woman at the counter saw sadness on my face as she took my order. She asked if she could pray for me. I nodded. She called together the other workers, and we stood in a close circle and she asked God to carry and comfort me, whatever my needs may be.

When I needed a place of peace today, a place where it was OK to feel sad even though it’s not OK to feel sad, I knew where to come.

Today’s barista is new, you can tell. She wasn’t sure what buttons to push and took my order with a nervous giggle. I wonder what her story is. What hurt she’s gone through. Whether she was sad when she came to work this morning.

What I do know is that, whatever her past, she’s helping to create a safe space for me, in this place where people understand that sometimes people are sad, and that sometimes the rain comes, and you have to just let it come.

I started therapy recently. You’re not supposed to tell people that, I hear my inner voice say. But I want to be healthier emotionally ― even though I’m super scared about the hard work it might take to get there ― and there’s no shame in that. I hope it helps me be stronger, strong enough to help other people be stronger, too.

Everyone gets sad, and the rain lets up, and they get happy again. If you’re sad today, you’re not alone.

And if you’re not sad today, know that someone around you might need you to be a coffee shop in the rain.