Just some thoughts... *sad sad*

A song keeps repeating itself in my mind now... a little girl hums until her voice slowly fades in the distance... then a tragic song is sung about how she is killed and the sad truth is, no one really cared about her when she was alive. And the name of that girl? "Little Susie".

Hubby introduced this song to me when I was searching for a song to use as a pre-reading activity in the classroom. I was going to discuss the topic of bullying and after browsing through his CD collection, Hubby just let me listen to the song, and I fell in love with it soon after. "Little Susie" was written, composed and sung by Michael Jackson. It's in his album titled "History -- Past, Present and Future". I guess fans of the King of Pop would have heard this song before, but since I was never really a fan, it's understandable why I would have come across it only now. I read somewhere that a girl named Susie was murdered in 1972, and M. Jackson wrote the song for her, and it was later released in 1995.

The song's really tragically beautiful... the soft introduction of a choir singing in the background, followed by the sound of someone winding the spring of a musical box, then the voice of the little girl humming to herself-- all these parts sound ghostly and sorrowful. Then when M. Jackson starts to sing, my heart would go out to the little girl in the song as I follow the lyrics:

"Little Susie"

Somebody killed little Susie

The girl with the tune

Who sings in the daytime at noon

She was there screaming

Beating her voice in her doom

But nobody came to her soon...

A fall down the stairs

Her dress torn

Oh the blood in her hair...

A mystery so sullen in air

She lie there so tenderly

Fashioned so slenderly

Lift her with care,

Oh the blood in her hair...

Everyone came to see

The girl that now is dead

So blind stare the eyes in her head...

And suddenly a voice from the crowd said

This girl lived in vain

Her face bear such agony, such strain...

But only the man from next door

Knew Little Susie and how he cried

As he reached down

To close Susie's eyes...

She lie there so tenderly

Fashioned so slenderly

Lift her with care

Oh the blood in her hair...

It was all for God's sake

For her singing the tune

For someone to feel her despair

To be damned to know hoping is dead and you're doomed

Then to scream out

And nobody's there...

She knew no one cared...

Father left home, poor mother died

Leaving Susie alone

Grandfather's soul too had flown...

No one to care

Just to love her

How much can one bear

Rejecting the needs in her prayers...

Neglection can kill

Like a knife in your soul

Oh it will

Little Susie fought so hard to live...

She lie there so tenderly

Fashioned so slenderly

Lift her with care

So young and so fair

Hubby's right...if you know someone's in pain and suffering and needs a helping hand, yet you stand by and do nothing but watch this person's life go down the drain, you're a silent bully, indirectly allowing hurt to be caused to someone. Whenever I listen to the song, I feel like crying as I imagine the little girl so alone...so tormented...so helpless.

Yes, neglection CAN kill. In my research on past bullying cases in the world, I chanced upon this video on youtube that showed pictures of teenagers who committed suicide because they could no longer tolerate the bullying acts that rained on them. Maybe they had no one to turn to for help, maybe they were too scared or ashamed to allow others to step in to help them... I don't know. All I know is that these young lives... so promising and innocent, suffered an abrupt end.

May all victims in fatal bullying cases be resting in the safe haven they deserve.