Behold: Fluffballs!

Jocke is the one with the black ears, Svente with the brown ears. And whoever guesses where the names come from gets a cookie. Worthians don’t count, they were told already.

Little penguin sat on a floe
Little penguin sang “Here we go!”
On the floe he danced the jive.
When he was done, he took a dive.
Caught some fish in the water below
then climbed back onto his floe.

Astrid Lindgren.

The woman who invented Pippi Longstocking and Emil, Lotta, Mardie, the Tomten and the children of the noisy village. She won the German Publishing Peace Prize for her creation and engagement, and even that was, imho, not enough honor.

She was an exceptional writer who chose to dedicate all her talent to children. She wrote about a little anarchical rebel girl at a time where children were still beaten at schools. She wrote a whole book about the long voyage after death – a book so revolutionary that the Swedish parliament discussed censoring it. She wrote for children, but she touched all of us to an extent that changed her time, her world, her century.

I read everything she wrote, every single line, and I still do. Her books accompanied me through my childhood, and she has influenced my life almost as much as my parents did. I still read and re-read what she wrote, and some of her books grow with time, and open to a depth of wisdom few people ever achieve.

I won’t recount you her life here, or list the books she wrote, this information can be found everywhere. I cannot find words enough to say how much I loved her, and still love her.

Thank you, thank you so much, Astrid Anna Emilia Lindgren.

Yes, it’s that topic again; it is touching my life from every possible angle right now, and I don’t really know how to cope, yet.

I talked to a kid some days ago. A teenage kid, an intelligent, talented, nice kid, who had to spill out his heart to someone, and that someone happened to be me. He told me that in a quarrel, his mother had told him she wished she had never had him.

It made me cry, and I couldn’t stop for a while. It’s probably because it reminds me of my father, who was like? this. Or because I’ve got a little boy myself, and I know how helpless and depending on their parents’ love they are. How CAN she fuckin’ DO this? Does she not know that these wounds will stay forever?

But, compared to others, this boy is still lucky.? In the course of the last two weeks (in which the incident with the junky family and the police fell, also, you can read about it below) I virtually stumbled over these stories, and mind me: These are ONLY stories of people I know. And only of people I know well enough to have been told. Think about the percentage. Think about the tip of the iceberg. Do not click away because you don’t wanna hear it, but read it, take it in and THINK, dammit.

- A man who is very close to me who was beaten and literally tortured by his alcoholic father throughout his whole childhood. He managed to get out of it and become a sane adult and even a loving father, but he still wears the scars and always will.

- A woman who had a sadistic mother. When she was nine, she threatened her daughter to have her raped if she did not behave.

- A man, now grown, who told me that his stepmother beat him and his brother regularly, daily, until, when he was ten, he finally had the strength to beat back at her to protect his brother.

- A little boy in one of my classes. I know his parents beat him, I really KNOW, but I cannot prove it. The kid is highly intelligent, but shows noticeable problems in his whole behaviour. His mother slapped him on class once, and I immediately interfered, but I don’t have any real proof to be able to do more.

- A woman who was sexually abused by her father for many years. She managed to save her soul, but she is under medication and always will be.

- A woman who was raped by a neighbor when she was 12. Her parents knew it and did nothing. She’s a grown woman now, and recently visited her family for a family dinner. When she told them she’s broken up with her boyfriend, her mother said “Well, small wonder you can’t have relationships. You screwed around with the neighbors when you were 12″.

These were, mark me, only things I ran into during the last week. I cannot control my empathy anymore – and this is bad. It took me a long time to control it and to keep it in, but now I feel raw and wounded, and often like crying. It is as if I heard their voices pleading within me, all the lost and abused kids. And I don’t wanna go there, it wouldn’t help them, nor me.

I was visiting a friend yesterday, and she told me some stuff about her neighbors. They are both alcoholics and junkies, and they’re got 2 kids: A boy aged 2, and a little baby, 6 months old.

They do not care about the kids at all. Every second or so night, the guy demolates the whole flat, kicks in doors and such, and they both beat up each other. They use the baby buggy for transporting beer bottles rather than their baby. And by the middle of the month, they’re totally out of money (which is social welfare money anyways).

My friend called the youth care dep. twice, but they didn’t do anything, obviously. And she won’t call again: The guy is threatening her. Being a single mom, she has to protect her kids, she sais.

So I went to the police. There’s a department here caring for special children issues, and I went there. Told them about it. They really listened attentively, and (hopefully) will take care of that. I left my name. The officer told me they will not give away my name, but I do not care. He may. If the guy feels like searching me out and confronting me, he may. C’mon, give me a reason.

I am sick and tired of people abusing, beating, torturing their kids. I can’t stand these stories anymore, and I won’t suffer it anywhere in my vicinity anymore. AT FUCKIN’ ALL.

That’s it.