Stolen Boy’s Weblog

We’ve heard Cari Barichello before. She is a woman of integrity and conscience, who has helped administrate Justiceforjuveniles.com, and has been a godsend for Tyler Edmonds’ and his insane ordeal through the Mississippi criminal justice system. Cari has written for Stolen Boy before, and now gives her heart-felt thoughts regarding kids, justice, and the upcoming holiday season:

As I write this, I coldly realize I am starting my day learning of the death of a 7 year-old boy whom I have written about. So many from Justice For Juveniles have prayed for Aiden Zaugg, sent cards and gifts of happy wishes through his 2 1/2 year battle with brain stem cancer.

I click emails through tears to one that plays the song “How Great Our God” that asks children what they think are the Seven Wonders of the World. One girl didn’t name landmarks, she named the very things that we tend to take for granted: touch, sight, hearing, feeling, laughing, love and the greatest of all, God’s amazing love of all mankind.

Today an 8 year-old boy still sits in a cell in Arizona all by himself, charged as an adult for a crime no one is sure he actually committed. A boy who more than likely in 3rd grade, is just learning cursive and how to indent paragraphs, who now has to figure out our flawed judicial system all by himself….as an adult he clearly is not.

My 7 year-old son slowly rises now looking at me all squint eyed, warming my sorrows with his bear hug and warm cheeks that still bear the pillow creases. He is healthy and not in a cell alone, away from Mommy.

How great our God who mankind has let down. We fail our children with our outrageous laws set up with the cruelest of punishments for the smallest of beings. Parents are ill-equipped to raise a child or to ill informed on the rules that govern their lives. Money rules our health care system and research that could save lives. Yet, I know there is hope.

We have the ability to change the future of our young if we just would look past the landmarks and extend out our hands for the good of all mankind, to instill the seven wonders we take so much for granted. It does take a village to raise just one child, but it also takes guts to change the life of all children. This Thanksgiving, be thankful for all that God has blessed you with and for those not so lucky, use your inner strength to lift them up, not let them down.

Thank you so much, Cari. Tomorrow, we will hear from the man himself, another new contributor to Stolen Boy, nineteen-year-old Tyler Edmonds, and what his thoughts are regarding this Thanksgiving holiday…