I went through the same thing with my son. I have written the parents a letter and would be really grateful if anyone knows them if they could pass it on. Many thanks. Lambs
Three years ago my son Maurice was attacked by a Pitbull in our local playground. He was two and half. I remember the blood seeping through his trousers, I remember the flesh hanging out of his body. I remember everything.
Just like you.
Everything you felt at the time. Everything you feel now. And everything you will be feeling in the months and years to come, I have felt too.
I heard you on the news saying how it was a ?needless, unnecessary thing to happen?. It?s true. If only he?d done as he was supposed to do and keep his dog under control. If only he hadn?t chosen a breed that had the potential, if it turned nasty, to do such terrible damage. This shouldn?t have happened to your daughter. It shouldn?t have happened to your son, and it shouldn?t have happened to you.
I am so sorry that it did.
I remember feeling like it was the owner himself who had hurt my son. By choosing a Pitbull, by ignoring the law and not having it on a lead and muzzled, and for not noticing as it ran in to the playground. It was as if he himself had ripped my sons leg apart.
My anger, fear and shock defined me for a long time.
I suffered from nightmares. Maurice was always in danger, and I was always too late to save him. On many occasions I would feel the fabric on his coat slip between my fingers as he?d fall in to the path of a speeding train.
Mostly I thought about all the other children in the playground that day and I would ask, why Maurice?
I couldn?t go to the park, the beach and especially the playground. I?d scoop both my children up in my arms every time a dog came close to them.
Please be sure that things will get better. Not for a while, but eventually, as the months and years passed I stopped looking at Maurice?s scars and thinking about what happened that day. I stopped thinking about the person who had put them there. I stopped thinking about the injustice of the dog not being put down. Eventually I accepted the scars as being as much a part of him, as his smile.
Everything is going to be ok.