Peter, you don't live around kids? A two year old is a toddler. Most kids walk around a year, but don't like to do it much till 2 and a half or three or sometimes later. Sara could walk; didn't want to. She wanted to hold on and be held. (I'm still saying, God, I didn't know how much and why). The older kids ran through the sprinkler carrying her on a hip, she liked that. She weighed practically nothing.
And, yes, it was that picture of reaching out to hold something that I couldn't that made a basis for the song. So many appalling things happened. At the family gathering afterward, I asked David if he liked the family where he was staying (the CSD picked the older kids up at school and put them in foster homes)He looked up at the male social worker who never left his side, and said, "I can't talk about it."
Yes, Peter, it is hard to write, and hard to get critiqued. Finally, this is all about that same bottom honesty. What is true, and how do we speak that truth?
I appreciate the people here who have taken the time to think about this on this thread and speak.

Shambles, I'll get back to your song in a separate post.
Blessings,
Barbara