Miracle in Maryville
[Yeh, strictly speaking, the story isn’t in Maryville, but the line scans better than “Miracle in Skidmore”.]
This story is all over the news. Little Victoria Jo Stinnett was “from [her] mother’s womb/Untimely ripp’d”* and will never see her mother, Bobbie Jo, because her mother was strangled to death by a monster. (A monster who, strangely, continues to draw breath… )
Joyous occasion, indeed, that she be reunited with her father.
The ambivalence? Noted above: That her kidnapper, the murderer of her mother, hasn’t already been converted to a rotting corpse, hanging from a pole and serving as target practice for every passing kid with a .22, her soul now serving a sentence of eternity in hell.
But at least Victoria Jo Stinnett lives and has a father. 1/2 of a Happy Dance… (And, of course, would have been an over-the-top Happy dance if Bobbie Jo had also siurvived. Better yet if she had been “armed and dangerous”—dangerous to Lisa M. Montgomery, the monster who ought to have died, instead of Bobbie Jo… )
Little Victoria jo will never know her mother’s arms, her mother’s voice, her mother’s love. But she will live and have her father, and in this marred, sinful world, that must be miracle enough.
*Apologies to The Bard for corrupting the famous line from Act 5, Scene 8 of The Scottish Play…