To Be Free

In the two years since I have lost Daniel, I have experienced how good our human nature can be. So many people have opened their hearts to my pain to give love, kindness, compassion and support without hoping or wanting to get anything in return.

I also saw the bad side of human nature, how cruel and malicious people can be. In my case they were only a handful but their actions were deliberately hurtful and destructive.It is this unjustified antagonism that caused me to become more and more reluctant to post anything personal.

I worried about how vulnerable it might make me if I should continue to tell my story. When I started this blog I had so little left to lose that it really didn’t matter. It is different now - through the nothingness, precious bits of new happiness and renewed prosperity have emerged. I have a life again.

But I decided that I won’t give up this blog which means so much to me because I fear what people may do to me. I will write…

… a few short posts about the hurtful things that happened just after Daniel had died. I believe that sharing these truths will help to free me from my fear.

… about all the good things that happened since my last update; the sweet miracles and really more happiness than I ever thought possible.

… about Daniel and my endless love for him. Always, because this is what it is all about. My love.

(I don’t know if I will ever be able to write about finding answers to the questions or about justice being served to the person responsible for Daniel’s death, but for now there is still hope, still a chance. Which is good.)

Wrong

I want to repost this comment that Cathy has left on my previous post "Want Daniel" because she sees losing Daniel like I see it: the most wrong thing in the world and she sees how it is for me to live with this cruel injustice. She is right, it is hell.

Thank you Cathy for knowing and for letting me use your words as my voice:

I don't know how anyone is expected to bear it, how anyone CAN bear it. And yet life forces itself on somehow, even if we are only enduring it.

I so mourn that your Daniel is not in your arms. His pictures, his eyes - I always think, it is the most wrong thing in the world that your child has been ripped from you.

It reminds me of a C.S. Lewis quote: "The cold, unsmiling face of Hell." Daniel's death seems a picture of what Hell must be. I should say, of what Hell IS, because you are having to live through it every day.

I realize not everyone believes in Hell. All I know is, Daniel being taken from you has forced you to live there.

(This week, two more people mentioned that they didn't believe Daniel's death was as accidental as it is made out to be. They don't know each other and have nothing in common. But the reason behind their doubts was the same. Should I react in any way? I don't know. I also have the same concerning questions. But for now, I just close my eyes, try not to think, pray and hope with every fibre of my being that Daniel's death was an accident and that everything possible was done to save his life.)

Drowning

What makes Daniel's drowning different to other accidental swimming pool drownings?

#1

Other parents will explain with regret, how a small distraction caused them to lose focus of their toddler and the water for a few minutes only for their attention to return to their child floating in the swimming pool; 80% of home drowning victims had been missing for 5 minutes or less before they were found in the water and 70% were not expected to be in or near the pool area at the time.

No one was looking after Daniel when he drowned. While both his dad and his step mother were fully aware that the children had free access to the open unfenced swimming pool, his dad left the house to go somewhere while his stepmother continued working on her PC in a home office situated at the opposite end of the premises to where the swimming pool is. Before his stepmother eventually found Daniel in the pool he had last been seen in the TV room where his 7 and 8 year old half siblings were playing TV games. It was one of the children who noticed that Daniel wasn't with them anymore and when they couldn't find him they went to tell their mother. They first searched inside the house before they went outside where his half sister later spotted Daniel's body.

#2

Without any delay other parents immediately called emergency services

Although their house is only minutes away from 2 major hospitals, equipped world-class 911 emergency response services, Daniel's stepmother only called her husband to alert him that Daniel had drowned. As their car was in for a service on that day, his father had left the house earlier driving his small scooter and from he received the phone call, it took him all the time to get home on his scooter and stopping on the way to borrow someone's car so that they could take Daniel to hospital. Around the time that Daniel's dad finally arrived at the house someone managed to call 911 but it was too late.

This extract is from the internet report that was published about 911 call-outs on the day of Daniel's death:

Mike

Mike was the first one of my friends that I called to tell the dreaded news that Daniel had died.

He was one of Daniel’s most favourite persons outside our family and Daniel could never get enough of talking to Mike on the phone. About Barney, amongst things, I understand.

Danny died in Johannesburg, same city as where Mike lives. The letter below is from Mike, who is a Civil Engineer, following a press release by the Johannesburg City Council asking for public submission regarding proposed new swimming pool regulations.

To: The City of Johannesburg

I am pleased that the Johannesburg Council is considering amending the by laws and increasing the safety so far as swimming pools are concerned. I have for some time now been listening to the well publicised incidence of drowning on radio 94.7 This public awareness campaign in conjunction with Netcare 911 seems to have emphasized the extreme risk that toddlers are exposed to. All too often the victims were the children of domestic servants ending in pools where the house owners had not secured the pool against children falling in. With each reported tragedy I felt more strongly that these needless deaths can and should be prevented. However being removed and not affected directly one tends to forget the feeling not long after the news bulletin.

On the sixth of January this year a dear little friend of mine fell into the unprotected pool at his father’s house. Daniel Starbuck’s life was cut short two months before his fourth birthday. His mother accepted a request that he spend the last days of the holiday’s with his father in Johannesburg. The parents stayed apart and Daniel lived with his mother Alison.

I have now seen first hand how these senseless deaths rip family’s hearts apart. His mother, sister and brother are broken people and I am not sure they will ever recover. The little man is dearly missed by all who know the family. May he rest in peace.

I write thus for Daniel and all the other little lives lost to the inability of home owners to take simple steps to secure swimming pools. Precautions along the lines of fences, sprung gates, nets and alarms are not expensive when compared even to the upfront or running costs of a pool. These precautions are however priceless when just one toddler is saved.

Unfortunately most South Africans don’t value lives sufficiently to voluntarily install foolproof safety equipment. The proposed permit should thus increase home owner’s awareness of this issue and I hope stiff penalties await people who flout the proposed regulations. This legislation could also open the door to more successful criminal and civil lawsuits when deaths occur after owners have not taken all precautions.

I recommend that at least two independent safety systems be installed. A combination of fence/gate & alarm, fence/gate & net or net & alarm.

Yours faithfully.
Mike Hull Pr.Eng.

This blog was started with an unspoken wish to carry a message strong enough to possibly prevent another toddler from drowning.
If you are a parent with small children, please don’t let your baby become the next statistic. Remember Daniel and let him help you never to look away. Not even for a second.