Valerie Nettles
Christmas #27
December 2023
Valerie Nettles
Christmas #27
December 2023
The case got cold as I got old but your still out there somewhere.
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.
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
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.
Ambiguous grief
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.
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.’
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.My boy is still missing. Cast adrift.
Time and opportunity ticking by.
Life, getting shorter.
Silence deafening, resounding.