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.”