To the Mom of the little boy who fell into the Gorilla enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo

So its been a while since I have blogged.. mainly because my littlest man and life has gotten busy. But I wanted to write on this even if no one reads it. As most people have probably heard by now a little boy fell into the Gorilla enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo this weekend and to save him the zoo dangerous animal rescue team had to shoot the Gorilla, Harambe. The strange thing to me is that instead of people worrying and praying for that little boy, most are horrified at the death of the Gorilla. Yes, I feel this is a tragic outcome however when you have to choose between the life of a toddler and that of an animal I would assume the child's life would take precedence?? Would be be in the same amount of outrage if this had happened in the wild while a family was on a safari? And to the people out there making threats against his mother (which who knows he could have been there with Grandma, Neighbor, Dad, Uncle, Aunt or countless other responsible adults, but please assume its his mom) and those who ASSUME she was not paying attention, is negligent, was on her phone or the countless other assumptions that have been made, please look at your own life, your parents, your friends, neighbors etc. Tell me are you so perfect that there is not a single situation in your life that something could have or has gone terribly wrong. There is no time where you could look back and think "wow, that was close" or "how lucky am I that that didn't go another way". You must be amazing because I can think of countless times where my breath caught in my chest and fear struck me at my core for what could have happened if something had gone slightly different. My youngest son (Tyler, 3) has had the Heimlich administrated on him, not once but twice, by his uncle while choking on food. Both times I thought I would throw up, had no idea how to handle it because my mind was going a mile a minute. When my oldest son, Steven, was 4 and my husband and I were at the mall with him and my middle son ( who was 2 at the time) and we were looking at something, Steven was holding my husbands hand and Will let go to reach something and he was gone. We were freaking out and found him a few moments later in the Brookstone store, but that could have easily gone very wrong. So now when I see the reports of this family and this little boy and all I can think of is how terrified this mother and this little boy's family must have been and how frightening it must be to think of what could have been. It is saddening to me how in this family's time of need that instead of praying for them and just lifting them up in our thoughts we rip them down and tear them to shreds. If you are so perfect that you feel you should be judging this person's actions and talking about a young child in such ways as "they should have let him die"... "he was better off in there than with his negligent mother" ... "they should have shot his mother instead" then so be it, but if you have ever texted while driving or even dialed your phone while driving, or been on the phone while in charge of a child, if you have ever let your eyes of any of your children for any reason, or taken your eyes of the road, accidentally ran a red light or stop sign, left the oven on, forgot to lock the door, forgot to put a cleaning product away, went to the bathroom with young children in the home and no one to watch them for those two minutes, went to the store with one or more children and stepped more than arms length away to grab a product, then you are far better than I am and judge away, but for all of the normal, regular, everyday flawed people of the world, take a breath, step back and imagine you are right there with this family, this mom, and this little, sweet, precious gift from God and just send them some good thoughts and prayers that they make it through this. And to his Mommy, where ever you are, know that everyone has had those moments and they do not define you as a person, I do not know you, and cannot judge your parenting but as long as you are present and doing the best you can that is all any one could ever ask. So be there with you little boy, hold his hand and kiss him and tell him how much you love him. And know that no matter what anyone says, there are plenty of other imperfect people out there praying for you and with you and we understand how hard this is. And no matter how tight your chest feels and how hard it is to get the what could have been's out of your mind... Just Breathe.

And if you don't know the story... you can read it here. 

http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/29/us/cincinnati-zoo-gorilla-shot/