by Cathy Glass
Jodie is now in a special school. As she has grown older her learning difficulties have become increasingly apparent. When I take her out, people now treat her like a disabled child, going out of their way to speak to her, behaving with exaggerated kindness. She’s very overweight, and this makes her even more cumbersome and accident-prone. Her delayed development and poor speech are also obvious, and every year she falls further behind her peers. At some point, perhaps quite soon, she will reach her ceiling in terms of what she can learn, and her disability will become even more pronounced in contrast to her peers.
She rarely mentions her parents now, other than in the context of her ongoing therapy. She does exchange birthday and Christmas cards with Ben and Chelsea, and she has spoken to them on the phone once. This phone call, however, was not a success, and is unlikely to be repeated, as she became very confused and hostile. Much of what happened to Jodie remains deeply buried, and will probably stay buried indefinitely. Only time will tell.
The children and I still visit Jodie, making the return trip of two hundred miles every four to six weeks. We also speak to her on the phone most weeks. On our most recent visit, Paula and I took her to a steak house (as a change from pizza) and while we waited for our order to arrive Jodie suddenly looked directly at Paula and said, ‘I like your top. It’s very pretty.’ We were delighted. It was the first compliment we’d ever heard Jodie offer, and it suggested real progress, as it showed the beginnings of empathy: Jodie had complimented Paula because she wanted to make her feel good, and because she wanted us to like her.
I still find it hard to understand what happened to Jodie. I can somehow accept that there are parents who neglect their children, through drink or drugs or mental illness, and whose cruelty is a side-effect of other problems. But the dreadful abyss that Jodie lived in is a mystery of such darkness and evil that it beggars belief. When I look at my own children and, thank goodness, the majority of children, who are loved and cared for and nurtured, it is hard to comprehend the mindset of parents who seem to care nothing for their child, and do not simply neglect her but actively set about destroying her for their own perverted gratification.
Jodie is a damaged child. She has been vandalized. Her mental processes and her emotions have been destroyed. I doubt she will ever recover sufficiently to lead a normal life, and she will never get the pleasure from life that should have been hers. She has been condemned to an endless punishment by the very people who should have cared for her the most. To me, that is the worst crime imaginable.
I still visit Jodie at High Oaks. Many of the children who were there when Jodie arrived have now left, having recovered enough to move on to long-term foster families. Whether Jodie will ever be able to do the same remains to be seen, but if ever she can, and I’m not too old, my offer stands. And I am still fostering. There’s always another child out there who needs help.
Acknowledgements
My heartfelt thanks to David, Andrew Lownie, Kirsty Crawford, Carole Tonkinson and all the team at HarperCollins. Thank you all for making the book what it is.
Copyright
This book is a work of non-fiction based on the recollections of Cathy
Glass. The names of people, places, dates and the detail of events have been
changed to protect the privacy of others. The author has warranted to the
publishers that, except in such minor respects not affecting the substantial
accuracy of the work, the contents of this book are true.
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First published by HarperElement 2006
© Cathy Glass 2006
Cathy Glass asserts the moral right to be
identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record of this book is
available from the British Library
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EPub Edition JANUARY 2009 ISBN- 9780007279753
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