It is 17 years since Andrew went missing. For various reasons, my wife Glenys and I are refurbishing half of our Victorian mid-terrace house. A well-meaning friend said to us recently that it must be good to feel that we can “move on” by including Andrew’s old room in this process. This is how his room looks at the moment:
We have removed picture rails, rewired, replaced damaged floorboards, even removed the lead piping for gas lighting that was under the floor. The old furniture is gone, new cupboards installed, the walls plaster skimmed and coving added. The paint Andrew chose as a boy (blue) has been stripped off, the room has been stripped right back and is being slowly restored.
As for “moving on”, we find ourselves intending to choose a new shade of blue for the walls and soft furnishings and to include some pictures ( see my blog archives ) and belongings of Andrew’s in the final stages. A missing loved one is not something that can be moved on from: we simply find ourselves another year on, with no clue where or why he went off that day, let alone where he could be now, even if he is alive.
It feels as though your life has been stripped back. Everything you expected to happen never did, or if it did, not in the way you expected. And now another year farther away from a possible clue. This hurts, in the most unimaginably painful way, all the time, every single day and in some ways that hurt becomes worse as more time passes. It feels we are trapped in an unending nightmare rather than moving on, let alone being restored and improved.
This doubtless sounds bleak to any reader and is why, as usual, I wish to encourage any reader to support the charity Missing People, who support many families like ours in many ways. One of the most important ways to help is to share their appeals for missing loved ones via social media. It costs nothing, yet may save a family or individual from a huge amount of pain. Similarly, make family and friends aware of the helpline 116000 so that they could seek support with any aspect related to missing, even if it is to talk through the feelings related to thinking of going missing.
This feeling of our lives being stripped down year in and year out can seem unbearable and never-ending, but there is an amazing source of support available and I can promise you that it is free, confidential and that you should have no doubts as to the value of making that call, or contacting them online or via text. For us, the pain may never end, but it does help to have someone at your back supporting you.
You can access the Missing People website by clicking the graphic below
As for “moving on”, we find ourselves intending to choose a new shade of blue for the walls and soft furnishings and to include some pictures ( see my blog archives ) and belongings of Andrew’s in the final stages. A missing loved one is not something that can be moved on from: we simply find ourselves another year on, with no clue where or why he went off that day, let alone where he could be now, even if he is alive.
It feels as though your life has been stripped back. Everything you expected to happen never did, or if it did, not in the way you expected. And now another year farther away from a possible clue. This hurts, in the most unimaginably painful way, all the time, every single day and in some ways that hurt becomes worse as more time passes. It feels we are trapped in an unending nightmare rather than moving on, let alone being restored and improved.
This doubtless sounds bleak to any reader and is why, as usual, I wish to encourage any reader to support the charity Missing People, who support many families like ours in many ways. One of the most important ways to help is to share their appeals for missing loved ones via social media. It costs nothing, yet may save a family or individual from a huge amount of pain. Similarly, make family and friends aware of the helpline 116000 so that they could seek support with any aspect related to missing, even if it is to talk through the feelings related to thinking of going missing.
This feeling of our lives being stripped down year in and year out can seem unbearable and never-ending, but there is an amazing source of support available and I can promise you that it is free, confidential and that you should have no doubts as to the value of making that call, or contacting them online or via text. For us, the pain may never end, but it does help to have someone at your back supporting you.
You can access the Missing People website by clicking the graphic below
