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.