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.’

Relentless Pace

The search for a loved one is relentless and there is no official handbook that explains the process when someone goes missing.  We need direction.  Do not be scared to offer us help and suggestions that are constructive and clear.  Show us the way forward, we are frozen in time. 

There have been few articles written about what a family does, or what an organization does,  but fail to address the important relationship between families and police.  Terminology usage is sometimes very formal and a bit ambiguous.  The pace of progress can be frustrating.  These are little things families need to be aware of so they don’t feel it’s just them.  It’s common.

What are the policies and procedures or lack thereof?   What should we expect in reality - not what is written in their own handbook?

To be ready to take up the search yourself when they are too busy with solvable crimes.

Missing Persons enquiries often fall beside the wayside. Cases may not always be risk assessed correctly.  Valuable details and time lost can never be recovered.   Police have dozens of runaways or county lines and dementia cases and it is easy to make simple assumptions about all cases.  Police are over burdened and understaffed.  Dedicated missing persons teams are needed in every force.  

It is imperative a family is listened to.  It takes tenacity and a willingness to challenge authority of the police and it is exhausting.  It often leads to a breakdown of communication to a level that is just unacceptable, but these cases are not a priority.

Long term missing are a category that seems to be immersed into statistics with cases which are more clear in the intentions of the missing person either repeat runaways and missing from care.  These are a huge issue but very much in another category. Yet the unsolvable long term missing cases which are out of character are the forgotten cases. No real statistics. No easy answers. No back story and no trail to follow.  Shelved too soon. 

I have learned to take each day at a time.  It is okay when mentally and physically exhausted, you  must let go, step back and allow your brain to decompress.

I am pleased to be on another think tank to support Charlie Hedges in a proposed handbook that will be helpful to families entering into this experience.