Manifesting Christmas

So many good memories live on in my heart from childhood to the moment of writing this.

I reflect on the changes.

It took a tragic loss - and other somewhat expected losses to deplete the joy of holidays, birthdays and otherwise warmly anticipated celebrations.

 

The hardest has definitely been Christmas.  I count some losses in my family as anticipated, having had time to adapt to expectations of the inevitable.  Painful, yet leaving us with happy joyous memories that continue to fill my heart at this time of year.  More importantly, having a place to lay flowers, pay respects and lingering awhile in memories means so much.

 

With gratitude for those memories and traditions we built upon and created a space of happiness for our remaining children at Christmas.  But when the fabric of your little family is torn away, revealing a gaping hole, the magic becomes harder to attain.   Every year a resounding, deafening feeling of loss lingers at the center of our universe.  Engendering the ever-present thoughts and questions - what happened? How did it happen? Did It happen? Or, has he found another life? That grim rollercoaster of not knowing is incessantly percolating.

 

So building upon the scaffolding of times gone by, we endeavored to re-create the ambiance of Christmas. We decorated and baked and played the part. It wasn’t the same. The heart leaden and the soul colder.

 

We are the ones left behind to cope with the unsolved and missing loved ones still in our hearts – every day. Missing but ever present.  Ambiguous loss. (Pauline Boss)

 

I live a life between memories ever defined as ‘before and after’ our wee beautiful boy vanished into the dark November night without a trace.

 

Valerie Nettles

Christmas #27

December 2023

 

Heartless

 The case got cold as I got old but your still out there somewhere. 

No closer to truth than at the start.

We cannot forget you either.

So every day, near three decades now

We hope to get the answer

Birthdays came and birthdays went

All without your laughter

Heavy hearts prevail most days

For your sweet life there is no respite

But to carry a ball and chain

Seeking justice in solitude and darkness

Unseen

In the gloom we are not alone

So many there like us

Lives un-lived looking for the lost

Cast adrift

And  it’s heartless. 

Damien’s 27th missing day

We are still hopeful one day we will have some finality to Damien’s disappearance. In the meantime, this is still a dream.

The reality? We live in this world of missing persons.  We are surrounded by a fraternity of families across the globe who, like ours, wait in a quiet desperation for answers. 

Suffering ambiguous loss as they live a life not fully engaged in the present & lingering in the past.

Every opportunity for light to shine on their loved one's case brings a moment of renewed energy in the midst of flagging confusion, loss and hope. 

Val Nettles Nov 2, 2023

Ambiguous Loss

Memories fizzle & pop

 Stars shine bright in early morning light.  As ever, my mind wanders to you Damien as I ponder your fate.  There is no way to know how you left us.

Rattling through my mind, memories, pop and fizzle like an old black & white cine film.  Your life, fast forwards jerkily, faded snippets of happy times, birthdays, Christmas, and laughter.  The film fizzles, melts to the whirring of an empty reel, a life unfinished, nothing but silence now. Terrifying visions haunt quiet moments. 

I know somewhere under these stars you wait for us, alone. You know I am always looking for you and one day will find you.  Have to. But time is running out, my son.

Touch paper

Ambiguous grief

The sensitivity of the situation has not diminished, but easier to talk about.  What used to be a trigger or touch paper moment, igniting swells of grief and emotion in the moment, are somewhat controlled. Not always.

I have learned to live in it and around it. It’s an open wound and is not healing, but the edges are less sharp. Sometimes. Tears of loss, inconsolable, quietly run amok in my heart and are only mine to know. #ambiguousloss #greif #missing #damiennettles #justicefordamien 

Time to move on….

 Life, for us, stopped the moment our son vanished without trace.  We haven’t “moved on” and I can’t think how we can unless we forget he existed.  It might appear we have because we didn’t disappear.  We are still here.  Life continues its path.  But now we live two lives.  One foot in the present and one foot firmly in the past.   We are not ready to give up on his life and cast him aside. A memory of inconsequence. He deserves to be found because we don’t think he was allowed to make a choice for himself.  Was it an accident? However, no body was ever found. Or, did someone choose his fate for him? We may never know.  

We hope time will tell. Until it does, we are still living in that moment when we knew he had vanished out of character.  That awful dawning realization, that fateful knowledge, we are in this for the long haul.  

 

I am sure it’s meant well when it’s suggested we have to ‘move on.’ It is incomprehensible to those who haven’t been in this situation to imagine how stuck we are in this ongoing grief.  It has a name Ambiguous Loss.  There are thousands like me living this loss, desperately hoping one day to get answers.

 

No matter how long it’s been - it is still an open wound. We have learned to live around the emptiness of it.  But we cannot walk away and ‘move on.’

FORGOTTEN

Behind a face of coping lives a deep sadness that simmers within a grief laden heart.

Tears fall, un-witnessed, into a void where hope clings and is nourished.

Hard to explain.  Physical pain.

My boy is still missing. Cast adrift.

Time and opportunity ticking by. 

Life, getting shorter.

Silence deafening, resounding.

When I was young

 I wish I had known.

 

When I was raising 4 young children spanning a 10-year age difference, I didn’t know the stress and anxiety was just a fleeting moment in my life. A husband busy working to keep us fed and housed.  I often felt neglected and alone with the burden of being a mother and housekeeper and later holding down a job.

 I didn’t appreciate that it was not forever.  When I was overwhelmed by life and feeling like a failure. It felt like a life sentence, and I couldn’t see past today.

I could not see a light at the end of the tunnel.  Looking back it was the most important fulfilling time of my life.  When I was the center of my children’s world, and my home was our safe haven.  I didn’t know that with all the ensuing stresses, school, job, making dinner, taking kids her and there.  Finding the money for trips and clothes and shoes.  All the anxieties.  

It was temporary.   A short time in a long life.  Now they are grown and gone with families of their own.

One is gone it seems forever. So how I wish I could reverse time and go back to those hectic frantic exhausting times.  When I had all my little eggs in one basket.  When life was whole. Treasure the moments because time moves forward regardless so don’t wish away the best of it. It’s not forever.

Calamity

 Calamity

Moving forward with life blissfully unaware.  Comfortable in your predictable bubble as you know it. Getting on with mundane daily life events.  When WHAM a brick wall smacks right into you without warning.  

Breath smacked right out of you. Will you ever breathe again?  Life is never the same. You look back yearning with hunger for that time when life had a level of certainty, familiarity and safety.  It’s gone.  But life keeps moving you forwards. Like froth on the tip of a wave. Shoving you forward in this new normal then sucking you back into memories. Facets of your life pulled back together like shattered glass. Forever cracked by an event nobody could have predicted. Cobbled together and strung in pain. 

Brick Wall

People ask me how I cope? The realization hit me like a brick wall

 

I don’t ‘live’ I exist. I am not depressed I am filled with sadness. I have reached a point in my life where I just sit and listen to the silence.  As I listen I reflect on how I got here.  Like an old cine’ film the past replays.   There used to be color in my life. My childhood.  Warmth and happiness.  Parents, grandparents and siblings.  Vibrancy and possibilities. Noise.   Children to nurture and visions of how their lives would evolve and who they would become. Visions of happy family gatherings.  Meet ups and play dates and friends with positive lives moving forward much like mine.  The future exciting. Careers, comfortable home and happy existence was all we ever hoped for.

 

Boom.  My son vanished at age 16.

 

Fast forward to today.  The past still on replay but now disjointed. Exhausting. Confusing. Desperate. Reflections of horror, sadness and loss hauntingly fill the void.  Fragmented thoughts  – coming at me in bits as I cling to them in hope.  I try desperately to tie them together.  Failing.   Reaching out for help.  Looking for an arm to hold onto.  But I am alone.  Searching every last memory and moment for a clue to end this bitter crushing pang of fear.

 

What happened.

He must be dead.  How?  Was he suffering.  Was he hurt.  Did he Cry.  Think of us?  Cry for us.

Did he know?  Out there somewhere and alone in his darkness he waits. Thoughts like this slip into my mind and slip out again leaving emptiness.

 

I listen in silence witness to all the unspeakable possibilities.  Waiting for truth and Justice called ‘hope.’

Almost 27 years and we still have some hope we might find the answer.  

I recently read a comment on another much more recent case and the author shouted the case should be closed.  If he knew the pain and the suffering endured by thousands who are the same place as me.  Looking for help and answers.  He might begin to understand. 

People are not disposable commodities.  

To Damien

 I don’t know how to shake this feeling of perpetual anxiety.  It’s gnawing and tugging inwardly in my mind and in my soul.

 

Never a day passes where I don’t think of you Damien.

 

This feeling has sat with me daily since you went missing.  26 years and counting my son without your voice,  your humor and your smile and your very being. The constant tug and pull aches of how much I miss you.  I think about you as I go about my daily routines.  As if I might seem normal, though it is grossly abnormal. Seen by anyone who did not know my son vanished might never suspect the pain inside my heart.  

 

I wish you could have been with me longer.  I know something bad happened to take you from us dearest boy.   It’s not your fault.

 

I just wish I knew.  I wish I could find an answer to make sense of all of this inner turmoil I suffer.  But suffer it all I will in hopes of knowing the truth one day.

Mother of Missing Damien Nettles. I will never give up hope. Author: The Boy Who Disappeared non-fiction/true crime ISBN: 9781789460711 enquires via website.