I can't seem to find the URL to the comments section of the Blog http://www.helpdylannow.com/ so I am also posting it here. (I am writing on behalf of my 3rd cousin Dylan Higginson. The tragic details of his situation can be found on the Blog mentioned above -- and I would be most appreciative if you please  comment there yourself, and lend a helping hand to this worthy cause)

 Hello Robert, we have never met, But I've heard a lot of good thing about you, from both my Aunt Alice, as well as from my mother, Geraldine, who frequently visits Alice in the summer.

I support of your worthy cause, And my thought and prayers are with you, and good luck in court on Friday.

As your blog suggested, I wrote a letter to the Governor, which I will I will excerpt from below:

Dear Governor:

Please help little Dylan Higginson. Dylan is my cousin, and I am actually related to little Dylan's mother, yet in this case, in the hope of sparing Dylan any further additional trauma and confusion, I am siding with Dylan's father.

I do so because my retired mother has spent months in Tuscon with my Aunt Alice, Dylan's great grandmother, the person assaulted by Dylan's mother (broke her nose) in front of a poor crying Dylan, who was traumatized by all the violence, screaming, and blood .

Dylan and his mother live with my aunt Alice before the assault. And because of this proximity to the individuals involved, I know that the information on the site HelpDylanNow.com is accurate and deserving of special attention.

I write in the hope that two tragedies are avoided.

The first tragedy would be the continuation of the confusion and trauma that has become the norm for pool little Dylan, in this most impressionable time in his life. My fear is that the emotional scars which are now being inflicted on poor Dylan, will result in permanent damage if they persist much longer.

Unlike many innocent children in the foster care system, Dylan is fortunate to have a stable and loving father, and step-mother, who deeply morn his absence, and can provide him with the respite that he so desperately needs from the emotional confusion, pain, and even physical dangers in his current life.

I beg you to please - rejoin Dylan with this loving family so that he can begin the healing process that will reconstitute his spirit, and return him to the comfort and tranquility of a nurturing family, which will build the emotional foundation that will serve him well for the rest of his life.

The second tragedy that I would like to avoid is the one which awaits Dylan's biological mother (who is my second cousin), if the current tragedy of Dylan's life is not altered.

For, from what I can tell, and from what I have been told, Dylan's mother, in her own way, loves her son, so when she acts in ways that are clearly not in her son's best interest, she does so, not out of malice, but out of an emotional confusion which probably has it's roots in her own childhood.

I think that when a young child is not provided with a secure and loving, emotional foundation, that their ability to love becomes arrested at the child-like stage. It is not drawn outside of it's self, an so it does not develop – mature -- to a more enlightened, empathetic, self-less stage. It never gets to the point where the first priority of love becomes clear:

When you truly love someone, you act out of their best interest -- first, even if it means that you must let them go. And, not surprisingly, this is also the very same wisdom expressed in the parable of King Solomon, the child, and the two mothers.

I'm afraid that in Dylan's mom's current confusion, she may be applying the wisdom of the mother who would rather have her child cut in two, than to part with him – so that he can remain whole.

And if this tug or war is to continue, the second tragedy that awaits Dylan's mother, will eventually happen. Because there is no stronger bond in this Universe than the bond between a Mother and Child. And even if periods exist where the fog of confusion intervenes in this process, it usually corrects itself, eventually.

And when this eventuality happens, and the fog is lifted, from Dylan's mother's eyes...but after the most formative years of Dylan's life have passed, and the emotional scars, that were not allowed to heal have, instead, frozen. And this second tragedy (which I pray can be avoided) will be best expressed from the mother's refrain: “Oh my God, how was I so blind? – What have I done...?”

So in closing, I ask you dear Governor, to be graced with the Wisdom and Compassion of Solomon, and intervene in this matter, concerning my poor cousin Dylan, and that you judge in favor of Dylan's Father -- not only to spare his son further tragedy, but to also spare the infliction of this second tragedy, that I noted above – to my cousin, Dylan's Mother.

Thank You.
John Soprych
Chicago, IL
a cousin to Dylan's Mother.

August 6, 2008 1:31 PM