Seven-year-old Vanessa of Hockessin, Delaware was found with a goodbye message on her arm that no child should ever have to write to their parents.
On February 7, school officials ordered a lockdown when an anonymous caller issued a bomb threat to one of the upperclassman buildings. At the time, Vanessa’s 10-year-old brother was also at the school.
“So my kid’s school had a genuine lockdown today,” their mother, Shelley Harrison Reed, wrote on Facebook. “Some whack job called in a bomb threat. Police came and everything was fine, Thank God!”
“My guys seemed fine when they got home and they talked about it with me, and told me their versions of what happened and then went right into their homework and normal after school stuff, and all seemed fine,” she continued.
Though the crisis was ultimately averted, Shelley couldn’t shake the message she later found scrawled on her daughter’s arm in purple marker:
“It wasn’t until later when Vanessa was changing out of her school uniform that I saw this on her arm… I say to her, why did you write that on your arm? She says, in case the bad guy got to us and I got killed, you and daddy would know that I love you, and she started to cry (as did I as I watched a little piece of her innocence get stolen away).”
The message simply read, “Love Mom and Dad.”
Facebook
Shelley’s heart was totally crushed that her sweet baby girl would be put in a position to think that such a dark possibility could become her reality.
“To know that my 7yo was put in a position to think that thought is absolutely gut-wrenching and it’s killing me inside,” she shared.
This is the first time the school has ever been under lockdown. Shelley told Yahoo Lifestyle that her daughter was so frightened because her classroom did not lock the door from the inside and “the ‘bad guy’ could have gotten it.”
Vanessa tried to hide away in the corner of the room by a bookshelf with her marker so she could write the message to her mom and dad.
“She wrote it because, ‘If I got killed and my parents came, they would see it when they found my body,’” Shelley told Yahoo.
“It’s now been a couple hours, and I can’t seem to shake this awful feeling, feeling of sadness, fear, and plain [disgust] for this new ‘normal’ our kids have to deal with on any given day,” the disturbed mother wrote on Facebook. “It’s a very scary and disturbing society we now live in, and it’s heartbreaking.”
Vanessa’s dad Jeff, said the 7-year-old was offered therapy at her school after the bomb threat. While their son seems to be doing fine, Vanessa still finds comfort in keeping the message on her arm.
“We tried washing off the note, but she pulled her arm back and wouldn’t let us,” said Shelley. “She’s even written over it with a different colored marker. If that offers her comfort, we won’t object.”
