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He raped her. She died in hospital the next day. She was only eight days old.
For illustrative purposes. Picture: iStock
I’ve been Jen-mama for two and a half weeks and I recommend grannyhood sincerely.
It’s all the pleasure of parenthood but without the sleepless nights. Bliss.
Except, except… this last week has been marred, because I look at my tiny grandson, so helpless, so defenceless, so dependent, and I keep thinking about that monster in Carletonville, the father who beat his own newborn baby and then – when it turned out that brutality won’t silence a crying baby – he decided to give her, in his own vile words, something to cry about.
He raped her. She died in hospital the next day. She was only eight days old, just one week and one day on this earth.
She was half the age of my own tiny grandbaby as I hold him in my arms, typing one-handed, and here’s what I know as I cuddle him close, as I stroke his silky head, as I think how could that monster do such a thing, how could he?
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My grandson is utterly helpless. My grandson is only just able to hold his own head up, but not for long. He is only now starting to focus, watching us with that interested, curious, baffled gaze, trusting us implicitly.
He needs absolutely everything doing for him. Everything. He needs his parents to feed him, to clean him, to clothe him and to provide a safe, warm environment, but he also needs our help simply to change position, to burp, even to fart.
In his plea explanation, that monster of a man said he was angry to be left alone with the baby – his own tiny newborn – while her mother went out to sell clothes for money to buy nappies, angry that she was being helped out financially by her ex, angry because the baby wouldn’t stop crying, angry, angry, angry.
He was angry with his mother, angry with his ex-wife, angry with the baby mommy, angry with his tiny baby girl, angry with all womankind no doubt, a deviant ball of rage, and I’m trying to find a universal lesson in all of this, some nugget of wisdom, but I’ve got nothing.
Nothing but his glowering face imprinted on my mind and his name a shriek of rage in my head. Yet I don’t even know the dead baby’s name.
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