When someone goes missing, your life is forever changed
I received an email the other day from a German exchange student from my old high school, Antje. She sent me photos of the fun and good times we had, aged 17 going on 18, some of which are too much 80s classic to share!!
This is a photo at Antje’s deb ball, with me on one side and my best friend in the whole world, Rellie, on the other. The camera man behind us? The crime writer in me goes straight to stalker vibes!
Keeping in mind we would only ever get one shot at the photo, nobody could ever check if our eyes were open, or if it was our best angle – in every photo I’m smiling, happy, joyous and having the time of my life.
Yet, how could I be so happy, when just a couple of years earlier my beautiful cousin Ursula had gone missing and still hadn’t come home?
I know the answer, and it’s largely through writing so extensively about missing people in my seven novels I have discovered an even deeper understanding of this.
We all face trauma in our lives, in one form or another. Sometimes our trauma is so traumatic, we wonder how we can go on. For family and friends of a missing person, the continual loop of not knowing, referred to as ‘ambiguous loss’ is one of the worst traumas imaginable.
I still remember the awful, debilitating feeling of when it dawned upon our family that Ursula was ‘missing’. I also remember the awful, heartbreaking day when Ursula’s Mum, my Aunty Cheree, arrived in hysterics to tell us she knew in her heart that Ursula was dead. This was when I was 20, and Ursula had been missing for five years.
But Aunty Cheree also set the tone for the whole family, insisting we always put our best foot forward. She had a wicked sense of humour and told side-splitting stories. I’m not even halfway as entertaining or funny as she was but she did teach me to seek laughter above sadness.
When Ursula went missing I surrounded myself with my friends and did what all teenagers do – kept incredibly busy, laughed until my belly and cheeks hurt, made new friendships like the one with Antje, and held on tight to my closest friends like Rellie.
At some point I believe we make a conscious choice not to let our trauma define us completely.
This is why, when you read one of my crime fiction novels, I won’t let you linger too long on the trauma or devastation of my characters who are affected so terribly, in many different ways, by not knowing what has happened to their missing person.
We all need put our big girl pants on, walk into the void, follow our dreams and seek out happiness wherever we can find it. Not only for ourselves, but to honour the memories of our missing loved ones and the joy they brought to our lives.
Melissa x