What is Christmas if a child is missing?

**bb1** Sat Dec 15, 2012 7:44 pm

http://www.mirror.co.uk/opinion/news-opinion/fiona-phillips-april-jones---1490385

What is Christmas if a child is missing? The agony of April Jones' family

15 Dec 2012 00:00
I saw Kate McCann at the Missing People Carol Service on Monday and she feels the same

By
Fiona Phillips

The Jones family have spoken of the agony of having to face Christmas without their five-year-old daughter April who vanished from outside their home in Machynlleth, Mid Wales, in October while playing with friends.

Coral and Paul are finding the thought of Christmas hard to face, but have said in a statement that “as parents of Harley, 10, and Jazmin, 16, we will obviously acknowledge the festive season as best we can”.

I saw Kate McCann at the Missing People Carol Service on Monday and she feels the same.

Her eldest daughter, Madeleine, who would now be nine, went missing over five and a half years ago and although Christmas is a particularly hard time of year for her and her husband Gerry, Kate says she’s put up the tree and the decorations because as normal a life as possible has to go on for her seven-year-old twins Sean and Amelie.

During the service she read from a poem called The Contradiction, written for her by the poet Clare Pollard, part of which includes the lines:

You are not here, I’m not myself,

but still I talk to you like this.

You’re in the crowd, the news, the glimpse –

I make you there when you’re not there.

I trace your steps, I map your face,

I say your name, see you in air...

How can you be so near and far?

You are not here. But here you are.

The unimaginable agony of not knowing where a loved one is – especially a child – must be the deepest hurt; a pain with no pain relief, a nightmare from which you cannot wake.

Not knowing if their precious loved ones are alive, dead or going through something that a mind should not even have to imagine must be a torture without end.

At Christmas, we all think of lost loved ones with renewed sadness, love, fondness, grief, but if they’re dead, at least we know they’re not suffering.

The pain of not knowing and the unspeakable fear of maybe never knowing is something that too many families are living with.

A child goes missing in the UK every five minutes. A quarter of a million people go missing every year.

That’s 250,000 families who, right now, are suffering the pain of not knowing.

For the McCanns and the Joneses, December 25 is just another agonising day. If only the spirit of Christmas would touch the cold hearts of those who know where their little girls are.

**bb1** Sat Dec 15, 2012 7:47 pm

Bennett's gang have been occupying themselves mocking that verse, led by pretendypete. Still, what else can you expect from a creature - I won't say 'person' - whose reaction to the killings in Connecticut is to say:

Clearly the President has to say something, and obviously priests, pastors, and other community leaders are there to try to get people back to some semblance of normality as quickly as they can.
It is just that I cannot find an emotional link.
Am I supposed to ?

No-one normal would even have to ask.

**Pedro Silva** Sat Dec 15, 2012 8:08 pm

I agree with Fiona Phillips.

**crazytony** Sun Dec 16, 2012 6:44 am

Clearly the President has to say something, and obviously priests, pastors, and other community leaders are there to try to get people back to some semblance of normality as quickly as they can.
It is just that I cannot find an emotional link.
Am I supposed to ?
Some semblance of normality?
Is that some kind of joke?
The children who died were little more than babies.
Things will never be normal in Newtown again.
As for Peter MaCloud's lack of emotional link; he shouldn't worry too much about it.
You need a soul to feel empathy and after reading what he has had to say about little Madeleine McCann; I conclude his soul belongs to Lucifer!

**bb1** Sun Dec 16, 2012 12:16 pm

It's actually scarey, isn't it? He looks more or less human, but the gene that makes people human - a soul, empathy, call it what you will - is completely missing.

His attitude is, Oh well, that was yesterday, now let's get back to normal and forget about it.

**bb1** Sun Dec 16, 2012 12:27 pm

Oh, now pretendypete and the rest of the McCann-haters are getting their panties in a bunch about Halligen - hard to believe he was ever a police officer with the rubbish he's coming out with.

Reis is also whipping up forker frenzy with deep, dark hints of revelations to come, just as soon as he is feeling up to it. Is it ever going to dawn on these people that they are being played for fools?

Not a thing I often do, but they really should read this:

http://blacksmithbureau.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/mindbenderspart-v.html

On the subject of the Pied Pipers they fall for, time and time again.

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