“You Dropped Her! Twice!”
By Sasha Dietze 

You tell me you care.
You look me in the eye and say,
“We’re doing our best.”
But your best
left my daughter bleeding on the ground.
Twice.

Twice, you let her fall.
Twice, you failed to do
the one thing her IEP demands —
keep your damn hands on her chair.
She can’t control it.
She can’t self-propel.
You knew that.
You signed the papers.
You nodded your heads.
And then you let go.

You let go.

And now you expect me to believe
you “care”?

No.
Caring isn’t what you say
in a meeting to look good.
Caring is what you do
when no one is watching —
and when no one was watching,
you let her fall on her face.

You call yourselves educators,
but you treat her like a decoration.
A 4th-grade girl
parked in a corner like she’s invisible.
Like teaching her is optional.
Like her potential is too inconvenient
to bother with.

You are not a school.
You are a babysitting service
with a guilt-soaked mission statement
and a whole lot of excuses.

And let’s talk about the system —
the government maze built by people
who never once had to fill out
the same damn application
three times
because some office worker
couldn’t keep a stack of papers in order.

You lose the forms,
you delay the help,
you talk down to the parents
whose lives depend on getting this right —
and then you make us feel like
we’re the problem.
Like we’re asking too much
for wanting our children safe.
Cared for.
Supported.
Actually taught.

I am so done being polite.

I am done being patient.
I am done pretending this is okay.
Because it isn’t.
It never was.

My daughter deserves better
than a corner.
Better than a fall.
Better than a system
that shrugs and blames paperwork
while children with disabilities
get pushed to the edges of classrooms
and lost between agency walls.

Do you know what it feels like
to fight every single day
against people who swear they’re helping
while their actions scream that they’re not?

Do you know what it feels like
to wonder if you’re failing your child
because the adults who were supposed to help
keep proving they never intended to?

Some nights, I lie awake thinking,
How many times do I have to crawl
through your broken systems
before someone finally listens?

How many times do I have to beg
for basic safety,
basic dignity,
basic humanity
for my daughter?

You dropped her.
Not metaphorically.
Literally.
Twice.
You let go of her chair
and you let go of your responsibility
all at once.

And yet I’m the one picking up the pieces.
I’m the one calming her fear.
I’m the one fighting uphill
while you keep making the hill higher.

But hear me clearly:

I will not be silent.
I will not be compliant.
I will not be the mother who nods and smiles
while her daughter is left to fall
again and again
in a system designed to fail her.

I am the mother who will go to war
for her child.
And if it means burning down
every broken system,
every lazy “best effort,”
every dismissive shrug —
I will.

I will fight
until she is safe.
Until she is taught.
Until she is valued.
Until you understand
that children like her
are not burdens.
Not background noise.
Not afterthoughts.

She is everything.
She is worth every battle.
And I will drag this entire system
into the light
if that’s what it takes
to make sure she never falls again.