Christmas Reflections 2019

Christmas gifts have been purchased, wrapped and unwrapped. Food has been purchased cooked and eaten. Children big and small have spent the day engrossed in new and interesting endeavors. Now I sit quietly contemplating precious decorations which adorn the tree which were made by my own children and grandchildren. A small glittery bell made from construction paper contains a photo of Damien when he was about 7. Who knew that this small creation would be one of the things I treasure so much? This is his work, he cut and pasted and put glitter on it and glued the picture in place. His little hands busily making something for the Christmas tree and proudly presenting to us, his parents. How could I have known the value of such a small thing he made. But now many things he did have become treasures. His school notebooks, his poetry scribbled in his own hand as his thoughts were penned to paper. Moments in his life so random but so special and of course we have treasured our memories.

Getting through Christmas for me is to throw myself into the tasks needing to be addressed; to create a day for the family to enjoy, staying busy, without bringing everyone down on this day of all days. Nobody has forgotten our loss and deserve to revel in this moment and create new memories around the space where Damien should be - with us - in our lives. Living with loss means we prioritize our needs and manage expectations which are adjusted and re-adjusted as the occasion dictates.  It is not black & white, easy vs hard.  It is living with loss and learning how to cope around it.
 
It’s easier said than done and took many years of baffled confusion to reach some understanding of this other life, one foot in the present and one foot firmly in the past. It is an ongoing struggle which you can choose to lose yourself in or try to make the best of it and hold yourself and what is left of your family together, for them, just for Christmas at least.

Unresolved Grief

Is this grief?

My son is missing and I don’t know why

Damien Nettles aged 9

As he left the house he waved bye bye

I woke up to his empty room

My gut feeling? Foreboding and gloom!

Surely he’ll come home as he always had before

He must turn up; we will hope for the best

But I could not ignore that sense of unrest

As time wore on I knew this was wrong

Nothing I learned seemed to help us along

What happened to him? I may never know

My loss is deep and the pain still raw

There now lives an empty place in the heart of our home

I mourn his short life that filled us with laughter

We remember him fondly and share all his banter

Arms and legs flailing as he cavorted about

Acting the fool larger than life

How we miss this lad

Our lives are tinged with sadness

Sometimes it feels like madness

I struggle with unresolved loss

Somewhere between ifs and maybe’s

Do I live in hope?

Do I accept he is dead?

How can I bury my son with no body to rest?

No grave, no marker to visit ?

I cannot grieve fully, but grief?  Is it?

Unresolved lonely and empty

Valerie Nettles December 2019

The Boy Who Disappeared - available in good bookshops, Amazon, Kindle, Nook, Audible

Website: damiennettles.uk

Twitter: @damiennettles

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/5825829842/

Light of Hope

HOPE

For those families like mine who struggle to identify where things went wrong.  We beat ourselves up every day to try to make sense of a situation out of our control.  We want to quantify the event. Something that led up to that moment. Some of us can find those answers but many of us are left clueless.

That’s where the anguish lives.

Truth is we can’t know in many cases exactly what led to this loss. We may never know and that  is the harsh truth.  The reality is we have had to adapt to a new normal. To face a life forever changed.

It may have nothing to do with us as individuals or our family.  It’s just a moment in time that altered the fate of our loved one.  To survive we have to embrace the new normal and hold onto it, take it in both hands and hold it tight.  Never letting go of the light of the hope that someday we will get answers to sooth our tortured souls. Follow the light and positivity & one day truth will shine on us too.

My book "The Boy Who Disappeared"  is available on Amazon and in bookshops, also Audible, Nook, Kindle

website:  damiennettles.uk

Hope for Christmas

This is a hard time of year to negotiate if life has taken a turn you didn’t foresee.

Many valleys have I climbed into and out of over and over again, before and after my son vanished.  The valleys prior to my son going missing were life issues thrown my way I had to deal with and sometimes did it well and other times not so!


The valleys I have crawled in and out of since Damien vanished have indeed been the hardest to stay above.  However, life has a force that propels you forwards and there isn’t much choice but to keep breathing, move with it or you will perish.  Part of me feels frozen in time and it will always be the part needing most care.  The part propelled forwards has also brought a lot of joy as well as that lingering sadness.

There can be joy and there can be happiness and even though there is a lingering pain of loss, life does soothe the pain a little.  It’s not gone. Life has taught me to deal and heal with it.  Never give in and never give up.

Damien38

I have been feeling very unsettled lately, like an itch beneath the skin you can’t scratch.  I have the familiar anxiety where I struggle for a deep breath.  It has been niggling at me.  I have a urge to scream, which thankfully I have under control.  It’s a frustration somewhere deep in my psyche.  Then I finally I put my finger on it.

It is just a few days away from Damien’s 38^th birthday.  When he went missing he had not long turned 16, very much still a child despite being a strapping 6’ 3” tall.

So here we are again, visiting another milestone without him. 

Somebody knows.  I just wish they had the guts or decency to tell us what went wrong.

The Quiet Moments

The quiet moments, when driving home, he wanders into my thoughts quite stealthily.  The familiar emotions that have been carefully repressed start to percolate and bubble like a small spring of water that has lain covered then is suddenly laid bare.

I say his name, a stifled sob like mantra “Damien my sweet boy, where are you” over and over.

I walk my mind through the moments when I first realized he was missing and we had no idea why he wasn’t to be found, anywhere.   I re-visit all the moments in a jumbled fast forward and I see his face and feel his presence in my soul, an almost tangible connection to his being.  But I know he is not close.  He is not to be found.

He is gone, and we don’t know how.

Thoughts are jumbled and fleeting but the deep primal connection to my child lingers like a physical pain.  The tears that I never shed anymore come easily to taunt me as I struggle to keep them at bay. 

This happens almost daily on my way to work and on my way home.  The quiet time when I am alone.  Its fleeting but its real and its bitter sweet as I feel the wisp of a connection and just as quickly its gone. 

I take a deep breath, compose my head and I go to work.

Birthday June 21st.  He has been missing since 1996.  21 birthdays missed.....

We need to know what happened.  Police have sent him to a cold dusty shelf where he will be taken out once in awhile and reviewed.  We have nothing.  We just have intense feelings of loss and intense dismay and disillusionment as to how his case has been mishandled, incompetent officers promoted or retired leaving us without any avenue.

BUT HE IS STILL MISSING AND WE WONT STOP LOOKING AND WE WONT GO AWAY!

Visit our website   Damien Nettles website

Please sign  DAMIEN'S LAW PETITION 

Watch this space

Watch this space

I had a colleague ask me what that meant.  I didn’t realize not everyone understands that saying.  But I guess I assume and one should not assume anything, I have learned.

It has been a frustrating year “watch this space kind of year” and seen a lot of hope dashed onto the rocks.  We started a uk.gov petition asking for Damien’s case to be given extra funding to bring it in line with other high profile cases.  Despite a marathon spurt towards the end, failed to get enough to make it to a Parliamentary mention. 7K in 6 months, not enough.

Over the years I observed how funding & publicity for missing cases is skewed at times. The publicity for young males going missing is typically less noteworthy as young females.  Young men, it is assumed, are out on the town and it’s acceptable for them to be off the radar while they do what boys do.  Girls on the other hand set off all the alarm bells.  Check out the report available online Men Missing on a Night out by Geoff Newiss and Portsmouth University.

In late 2016 I set forth some points on the subject, I called it Damien’s Law.  I set up a new petition to ask the government for better risk assessment when young males especially go missing.  Better case management.  Better treatment of families left behind to cope.  More partnership between agencies involved in a missing case to ensure nobody falls through the cracks.  It’s my hope for a lasting legacy to Damien.  That he did not disappear and our family did not languish in ambiguous loss for nothing.  My hope would be for Damien to be associated with something that would have meaning for future missing cases and make a difference.  Future cases would not be ignored and left until the passage of time becomes too wide to broach.  Left to chance.  We teamed up with Charlie Hedges of Charlie Hedges Advisory who envisions a Center of Expertise for Missing People.   We are also supported my renowned Criminologist Dr. Elizabeth Yardley, Center for Applied Criminology @ Birmingham University in UK.  Professionals including Missing People .  All experts who ascribe to improving the plight of the missing and issues that surround it.

In late 2016 I submitted another complaint to Hampshire Constabulary regarding poor policing and lack of communication; lack of integrity; lack of compassion; lack of clarity.  I also addressed several specific areas where I felt they fell short.  The initial response from the police was to pass this to IPCC as they recognized a loss of faith in their abilities by me.  However, the IPCC handed the complaint back to Hampshire Constabulary.  After some months Hampshire Constabularies response was that some aspects of the complaints were upheld but others were not.  Passage of time, personnel moved on or retired.  Not all the case notes were transcribed from paper to HOLMES database when he was added to Major Crimes to investigate and placed on the HOLMES database.  I appealed these points to IPCC, who then accepted the appeal.  However, they failed to uphold my concerns.  Police apologized to me for shortcomings, poor police work and ensured me things are improved.  My Damien was a practice piece then?  I still see gross negligence happening in missing cases.   I am not convinced things are much better at all.

This has been a depressing time.  The public have supported me and have been the wind beneath my wings.  But it’s not looking hopeful for enough support to make any difference and my hope is fading for a lasting legacy for my son.

As I get older I am more acutely aware that time is ticking and that I may never see any result explaining what happened to Damien.  I have, like many other mothers and family members, spent countless years hashing and re-hashing the movements and every small bit of information, good and bad, that comes my way.  Begging for attention to my son’s case.  Pleading with those who might have any idea.  I have gone to extremes I never imagined I would ever go to look for my son.  It’s emotionally draining and it is physically debilitating to keep it up day after day.  When I try to rest, something comes up to propel me along again.  It is relentless.  The alternative will be to stop and let Damien fade away for good and I can’t imagine doing that any more that I could turn my back on my surviving children when they are in need.

Damien’s Law