I live a mile and a half away from that boy's home. His front door is a mile and a half from mine. I searched my garden and garage. I joined the hundreds of volunteers, silently, slowly walking in a straggling line, eyes on the grass. I'd walked my dog exactly there on Wednesday afternoon, just hours before the story broke on Thursday.
People talk about community spirit, and I went along, thinking I could do my bit. What I hadn't realised, was how completely emotionally involved I would get. I haven't been able to stop thinking about that little boy. His face haunts me. I want to cry all the time. I've been horrible to my own children, and then wanted to cry again, for having been so horrible. I might have said "What do you mean, you won't eat a banana, when there's a little boy who's out there somewhere, lost and alone, and maybe dead? How can you make a fuss about a banana?" I might have said that. It didn't help. Him, or us.
I don't know why geography matters. These days, shouldn't we all feel connected to each other? What's the difference between a child missing here, and child missing anywhere else? I'm not part of the immediate community. In a city, a mile and a half takes you across maybe a couple of localities. When the media says he was from a "close-knit community", I wouldn't consider myself part of that one. All I know is that geography matters. Even today. I've been swept up in this in a way I couldn't have foreseen.
He lived a mile and a half away. His front door was a mile and a half from mine.
.
((Hugs))
ReplyDeleteI turned on the news this morning hoping to hear he'd been found cold but ok in someone's shed but it was that poor policeman struggling to share the news.
Well done you for helping, trying to help. It's just horrible how it has turned out.
Terribly sad. Thank you for helping.
ReplyDeleteIt does bring it closer to home, being close to your home. Not sure why; perhaps because you SEE it all going on around you & FEEL it. Well done for helping and doing your bit. I have been v caught up in the story & hoping for good news.
ReplyDeleteI'm so sorry. I don't know what to say either.
ReplyDeleteI think geography does matter -- a lot. (I remember the feeling in our town in the US after the Connecticut school shooting - it was not very far away.) I'm not surprised you feel awful. What a terrible, terrible thing to have happened - I can hardly bear to listen to the news today. x
ReplyDeleteSuch a tragic story but how wonderful that you were one of the many people who volunteered to help in the search. If only the story had a happier ending.
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ReplyDeleteIt's always easier to watch fom a distance than seeing stark reality in familiar surroundings. I think the police knew they were looking for a body from the first day, by the unsaid and the undone. Every child death is sad, but it's the thought of their total trust for their parents and their fear as they are let down. There was a father killed his children on a hotel balcony, the last one to die, the eldest boy, what fear? It's shit and I so hope there is a judging god, a danty's inferno, or at least another prisoner prepared to put the murderer through the same fear. I wrote about child murderer murderers once. It happens more than it ought. I walk down a path where a child was killed it's always there on my mind. It seeps in no matter how much you want to keep it out. Your tears show you're human, you won't stand alone in your area. The services held will be as support for the living, as much as the dead, it may help to join te community again in grief to give your feelings some relief. Look after yourself xxx
ReplyDeleteIt's such a sad news story, but it must seem even sadder when it is so close to home.
ReplyDeleteI wonder which is worse: the finding of that little boy's body or the never finding of it. Either way it is awful and it's not surprising you feel as you do. Hug your own children tight. x
ReplyDeleteSuch a tragic story. That was really brave of you to volunteer. My heart goes out to the parents. I'm not surprised it upset you so much.
ReplyDeleteIt is so sad for everyone involved and my heart goes out to you. A loss for the whole community and yet there is a glimpse of true goodness in the fact that so many people left what they were doing to help in the search for a little boy they had possibly never met. Thank you, on behalf of those of us too far away, for going to help. As John Donne said:
ReplyDeleteNo man is an island,
Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thy friend's
Or of thine own were:
Any man's death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.
I googled-mapped, and found that out. Suspected you might be there.
ReplyDeleteNo words, but much love, and lose not heart nor faith in good.
J'ph x
I have been thinking of you. Them of course, but you too. I imagine it must feel even odder, and no less but differently sad now.
ReplyDeleteThe only way we can deal with incredibly sad news like the above is by blocking them out, pretending they don't happen where we are. This really is too close to home. I might have cried despite being miles and miles away. xxx
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