Wednesday, December 10, 2014
Missing
Missing people. With an emphasis on missing children.
Not sure how I came across it, or how it
has become a semi-obsession for me, but this topic has reached out to me in a
way that has literally changed my life.
My two children are still very young, and they do not yet go out on
their own to do things like visit a friend or go for a bike ride. But as I deal when the time comes when I feel
it’s okay for them to venture out by themselves without mom and dad, I’m also
trying to figure out strategies where perhaps mom and dad can accompany them on
their outings without coming across as being overbearing or overprotective.
A site that has garnered my interest is
missingkids.ca. It is a website with a
database of nationally registered children who are missing and have families
that are still looking for them. What’s especially
disturbing to me is how long some of these individuals have vanished without a
trace. A case that comes to mind is a
ten year old boy named Richard Marlow, who was last seen riding his bike
outside of his home in 1944, and no one has seen him since. Or two year old Diane Prevost, who was with
her family at a provincial park near the beach on vacation in 1966. One minute she was there, the next she was
gone. Was she taken in by the
water? Did she wander off on her
own? Was she abducted? It’s like a mystery novel when you search
further about the details of these cases and the clues left behind, and read how
authorities still pursue any leads that may come forward (although as you can
imagine, not many do anymore in the aforementioned cases since so much time has
passed).
The mystery element that intrigues me dissipates
quickly though, because then you really sit and ponder what the eventual fates were
of these innocent children. What happened
in their last moments, or are they still alive?
You think about the parents who live with guilt for the rest of their
lives, not being their when their kids needed them most. Many hold out hope their children are still
alive; I recall one case of a couple who lost their four year old son several
decades ago. They hope that their child
was at least taken by someone who wanted a family but couldn’t, and was
desperate enough to kidnap a child.
Perhaps they will at least be loved and be cared for, even if they can’t
see their child again. Some tell
themselves it is likely their kids are dead and live each day trying to accept
that fact. In either case, there is no
closure for them. And how they move on
with their lives, I’m not sure how they do it.
There is another site I visit, charleyproject.org,
which compiles missing person’s cases and also publishes resolved cases. I read the resolved section because some do
have a happy ending. A lot don’t, that
is true, but reading about the families having closure and the stories about
reuniting with missing loved ones after years have passed does make you
feel hopeful an equally happy ending will await others who still deal
with losing a member of their family.
In the meantime, I’ll keep an extra set of eyes
on my children, try not to be too paranoid, and hope I'm fortunate enough to never have to go through
the nightmare of losing them in my lifetime.
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