‘Your potatoes are the best, Mum,’ he used to tell me. ‘Nothing is as good as your roast dinner. Dad tries his best, but I do prefer yours.’
I miss his lousy attitude too: the way he never did what the hell he was told. I understand he was almost an adult, a grown man in his own right, but he was our only child. As his mother, all I want is the best for him. Nothing could have ever prepared me for the feeling of loss and helplessness that day he walked out of the door and never came home. You hear about it happening up and down the country, but that’s other people’s children, not mine. The realisation that my son is missing can be too much to handle. My brain is continually working overtime, wondering what we’ve missed and looking for the links.
Sitting here, at the same kitchen table, as I face the back door I am reliving that day. I look at the door with a new birthday card in my hand just in case he should wander back home. The sun is glistening through the window with the light catching the floor to illuminate a space of warmth. It reminds me of our old dog, who used to sit in those sunspots to sleep. I wish I could get some sleep, just one decent night.
You would think that on his birthday he might remember his family – today of all days make some form of contact with his father and me?
If he does not come home today, I will place the card in his room with all the others I have bought him over the last three years. Birthdays, Christmases, Easter; if I do not buy a card, I feel it is as though I am letting go of him. I don’t want to let go of his memories. I want him to see that I still care even if he’s not around. That I have included him as part of this family. There’s nothing more I want than for him to walk through the door and say how sorry he is. Being left without any explanation is the most torturous feeling with my anxiety issues. I can’t seem to forgive myself even though the anger towards him for what he has done lingers.
He is twenty years old now, I tell myself. He may even have children of his own. I could be a grandmother. I’ll never forget holding him in my arms the day we walked out of the hospital together. That was the day that my life changed forever. I was a mother.
At times I daydream about looking after the grandchildren or all of us being one big happy family at Christmas time. Missing potentially significant moments in his life, which could include him getting married, having children, is disturbing me. The not knowing anything is what hurts the most: the guilt I live with cuts deep.
There wasn’t even a note. You hear that some children leave home, but at least they voice their reasons on a piece of paper on the kitchen table – or in their bedroom. I scoured Andrew’s room top to bottom and found nothing. After the first few days I had turned the whole house upside-down in case I had missed something, and still not a sign, nor reasonable explanation for his sudden disappearance. I convinced myself that he might have been murdered; however, now I believe he is out there somewhere, living his own life. I have to remain hopeful because no body has ever been found.
His disappearance has put a strain on my marriage to Thomas. Some nights we sit watching television without saying a word to each other all night. I know he still loves me, yet I sense he blames me in some way. Thomas doesn’t talk about Andrew anymore, which upsets me. The silence can be unnerving. I can’t just forget about him, nor will I ever give up hope.
Thomas says that we need to move on with our lives. If Andrew can walk out and forget about his parents, then we too should be selfish. I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if he left because of something we had done or said. Thomas remains adamant that I should start letting go of Andrew. To live my own life now without the fixation on his whereabouts.
But I’m his mother!
The tears rolling down my cheeks taste salty as I wipe them away from the corner of my mouth. There are so many unanswered questions about why Andrew turned his back on me or why he never made contact. His disappearance shocked the whole village, who could not help enough. After the first few days, I rallied some support for putting up posters in shop windows, contacting his friends, walking through fields to see if he was hurt, injured, or worse – dead in a ditch somewhere.
Mary, from across the street, was by my side for most of the first few weeks after he vanished. I used to talk to her constantly about things Andrew did or said leading up to his disappearance in case there were any clues. It was good to hear someone else’s opinion in case there was something I had missed, even if it was something small. Andrew never had any friends that he visited. He mostly enjoyed playing online games in his bedroom; it didn’t make sense to any of us.
Did someone on the internet persuade him to leave home?
After the first few days, the media presence with the local press was continually hounding us for updates. While I appreciated their support, because Andrew was not a young child with any obvious signs of being kidnapped, it died off very quickly. To them he became just another teenage boy who had left home.
It’s the little things that friends do to support you that make all the difference. From hanging out the washing, or cooking a hot meal, to just being there to listen as I cried into my cup of tea day after day. After the first few weeks, I started to get used to him not being around, telling myself he was just at college all day. I do wonder if he still thinks about us.
Does he even care anymore?
The phone did not stop ringing with potential sightings of Andrew at various places in Plymouth city centre in the first few days after his disappearance. Despite being hopeful that each phone call could be the answer to our prayers, none of them turned out to be him. It is as though he just ceased to be in existence.
There’s no way my Andrew would kill himself. He is not the type, not that I suppose you can pinpoint a kind of suicidal person, but I know my son. If Andrew had killed himself, he would have left me a note. He wouldn’t have had to leave home to do that, and there would have been a body found by now.
‘He’s out there somewhere,’ they all tell me. ‘He’ll come back home to his mother when he’s good and ready.’
I should start to move on with my life, if I listen to the advice given by my colleagues in the charity shop. Even the few women who I converse with at charity fundraising events I can tell are sick of me chattering on and on about my son, but it’s okay for them who haven’t suffered the anxiety of such a loss.
Nothing can distract my attention away from the fact that my son is missing, but what makes it even worse is that my memory of that day is blurred. Being overcome with grief could be clouding my recollection of events. I remember his birthday; I remember that we argued. The two events replay in my mind over and over like a video before halting to a stop as if the movie has come to an end. I cannot seem to rewind or fast forward. Some days I stare at the wall knowing that it was my fault. I blame myself constantly because perhaps he needed me when I was too interested in my own life. As a mother, did I fail him?
The thought of my Andrew being out there has given me hideous nightmares. If he has mental health issues, then is he making wise decisions for himself? It has crossed my mind that he may be homeless with limited access to money. I hate to think of my son sitting on street corners begging the public for money, or worse, to fund a drug habit. What if he has hit rock bottom with no one to turn to? Not knowing anything about his life will drive me insane. We all believe he is out there somewhere. I’ll find him; I know I can if I build up the mental energy to get out there again and gather up some support in locating my son.