2 October 2012
When a loved one disappears, it must surely be the hardest thing in ones life to come to terms with. Especially if that loved one is never found, or worse.
Total joy if the loved one is found safe and reunited with family.......
BUT
Have we ever stopped to think what it must be like, searching day after day, week after week, sometimes going into years... unable to eat, sleep never mind trying to think straight and remember fine detail, all things important to the search.
Roughly 42 years ago, at about 11 a.m I took my young son to play with his friend, the child minder / cleaner, let him in and I went back across the street to finish cleaning. However when I went back to bring my son home for lunch , I was told by the child minder / cleaner that he was not there. She had apparently told my young son that his friend had gone shopping not far from where we lived. She then let him out to look for his friend.
My son made his way to the shops, looking for his friend and was found looking lost and crying, taken to the local police station.
In the meantime, I had started my frantic search with my sister, we walked the neighbourhood and at each derelict building my fears almost took over as we searched the place. Between crying and searching, fear of what might have happened to my precious child, he was safe with the police, waiting for his mum to get to him.
So many things ran rife through my mind, fear of finding his body was high on my thoughts, hysterical, at times a bit calm, almost like I was dealing with a stranger whose child was missing, there was extreme fear of what his father was going to do, he was known to get a bit violent.
Well when his dad got home from work, we searched some more, eventually going to the police, and there was my son, sitting on the counter, being entertained by the policemen on duty. At that stage a person had to be missing for 24 hours before legal searching would begin, imagine that.
Well as we got into the car, I received a mighty backhand , cutting my lip open, but thought at that stage that I must have deserved it, but when we got home, he slid his leather belt from his jeans and beat me up, my young son did not escape a beating either! So our traumatic day ended with more trauma.
My story had a happy ending despite the beating, my son was home. Just 36 short years later, my son was murdered, never to return. Never to be found safe and returned home to be loved by me again....
But this is not about me and mine,
This is about the here and now, about a missing little girl, perhaps a missing adult, a missing person, loved by someone, wanted and needed..... Someone who means a lot to loved ones. Their trauma is just beginning, the journey of searching, self guilt, not eating, sleeping, hysteria..... Praying for a miracle, please God, let there be more miracles for everyone who is facing this trauma right now in their lives.
For the family of the missing little girl, frantically searching, let there be a happy ending, prayers for you.
There is so much going on on our world, wars, soldiers being maimed or worse, violence at every turn. Please people.....show compassion, love and understanding for each other. Let our world be a better place to live.
Missing • Opuss № I