Ding, Dong! The Wicked Monster is Dead: Adios Ariel Castro!

Ding, Dong, the Wicked Monster is Dead

Ariel Castro managed to somehow commit suicide by hanging himself in his isolated prison cell. Recall, he was the monster from Ohio who kidnapped 3 innocent females and held them captive in deplorable and cruel conditions while raping them, starving them, inflicting mental and physical torture. He even fathered a child with one of his victims—a six year old female child who was wearing diapers upon her amazing rescue. His horrific evil crime spree spanned a decade for most of the women he kidnapped (some who were children themselves when he stole them from their families and the lives they knew and enjoyed). His youngest unwitting victim—the child he created through one of the rapes—spent the majority of her first decade in the hell on earth that Castro created for his helpless victims.

Out of the darkest hours imaginable heroes were made. Their personal and collective fortitude strengthened their determination and will to live, heal, and become even stronger. I remember learning about the personal struggles Oprah endured as a child when she recounted being raped as an adolescent—even delivering a stillborn baby. I was always impressed that she went on to achieve so much and help others on a scale both altruistic and deeply profound. For a minute I thought that maybe early atrocities suffered in childhood aren’t really as bad as we all think. I incorrectly reasoned that if Oprah was able to do as well as she did despite her early trauma that maybe we are all over thinking the magnitude of tragedy and bad luck. What Oprah said about herself and the personal hardships she endured, survived and overcame was something to the effect of: Imagine what I would have been able to achieve if those things never happened to me! That shifted my paradigm entirely. In other words, the miracles she achieved in life could have been even more numerous and further reaching had she not had to climb out of a deep hole to first get on her path of greatness. I mention this because I am reminded that even though these three brave women are impressing us with the strength , hope and courage they revealed upon being freed from that monster, they could have been that and so much more had they not had to literally crawl out of a deep hole first. The confidence one of the victims demonstrated at Castro’s sentencing, despite his attempts to blame and humiliate her further, was riveting. She became one of my own personal champions of strength that day.

The fact that Castro could not manage to survive more than a month in confinement after what he did to his children victims unnerves me. How dare he take the easy way out by committing suicide!  He is skipping out on years and decades that make up the life sentence plus 1,000 years in prison he was sentenced to. He will never agonize in a similar loneliness, despair, and spiritual poverty like he inflicted on others.

I understand that some gentle readers may find my tone and words shocking. I understand that someone in a helping profession such as myself may be expected to be tolerant to a fault, non judgmental, and less emotional. However, I am a person. See my humanness, frailty and fault before you see the non-deserved humanness in the likes of real-life monsters such as Castro.