Angels and Demons.

It's not often I cry for 300 miles.
I've had breakups with girlfriends and deaths of family members that have brought on brief torrential tears but these clouds pass as the natural order of life keeps moving.
War, genocide, famine, these things tend to get me mad rather than cry. You'd think we would get tired of behaving badly and live like descent mammals. I know we can.

This story had me in tears all the way across Virginia and still is bugging me. So in lieu of a therapist here it goes.....

In 1964 a doctor and his wife wanted to experiment on a baby and learn about child development. They found a mother who had just given birth to a baby girl in a hospital and after two days of careful planning the good Doctors stole the baby from the mother.
The doctors raised the baby as their "own" daughter as they observed and documented her development. They conducted experiments on her cognitive understanding of language and the pattern of her social development as a child.
She was cloistered in the Doctors home where she had limited visitors and was always under observation. She lived this way for 12 years.

She grew into a thoughtful child who delighted in the civil ritual of making tea for her parents and teachers and other guest that would visit. She had a happy childhood.
Ah but puberty brought on changes that made the doctors most uncomfortable.
She became extremely strong willed and prone to fits in which she damaged their possessions and made them wonder of their own safety.
Her budding sexuality was overwhelming and uninhibited.
Their sweet little daughter had grown into a hellion.

In a throw back to Victorian times the doctors made plans to send her away.
They found a nanny to watch after the child while they looked for a suitable exile.After six months they settled on leaving the girl in Gambia, Africa.
At 12 years old the girl and her nanny, Janice Carter were left in what Ms. Carter describes as "a tropical hell".
Janice Carter had instructions to stay with the girl for three weeks to make sure she was accepted into the local society and her new family.
The doctors went back to the States. Janice has never left Gambia.
And for Lucy...(fuck .I'm crying again) The child Lucy was left to face a world in which she did not fit in. Why had her parents left her? Why after being raised as a normal girl had her parents left her to live among chimpanzees?
You see, Lucy was a chimp who was raised as a human girl.

I think this is one of the most monstrously EVIL acts ever done by humans.
Dr. Maurice and Jane Temerlin created a lost soul through their arrogance and lack of foresight in the care for Lucy.
Lucy did not adapt to her new situation. For all she knew she was not a chimp. She became gravely ill from the stress of her abandonment.
Thank God for Janice Carter. She stayed with Lucy at her original sanctuary then took it upon herself to find a better sanctuary and bought a small island in a river in which she moved Lucy and several other chimps to live.
It took a year of insane dedication on Janice's part to socialize Lucy enough that she could survive as a chimp on the island.
Janice Carter has devoted her life to the care and well being of chimpanzees and still runs sanctuaries in Gambia. She is an Angel.

After being away for a year Janice returned to the island to check on Lucy and was approached by the chimps and Lucy. Lucy hugged the tearful Ms Carter and comforted her before joining the other chimps in the bush.
A year later Janice Carter returned to the island and found the mutilated skeletal corpse of Lucy. She had been killed by poachers who she probably approached as fellow "Humans".

I reckon this story tears me up because of the broken covenants that I see every day. We domesticate animals and invite them into our families and then when they become an inconvenience abandon them to a cruel world.
You can get rid of an old sofa but how the hell can you throw out someone you raise as family?
This story aired on the radio programs "This American Life" and "Radio Lab".and can be found on line in their archives. (yet another reason for funding public radio.)