Missing you

MISSING. This one word cannot describe the range of emotions it brings when it must be used to describe a family member or friend. And yet it is a word that describes hundreds of Irish people who for one reason or another, disappear from the lives of their loved ones without a trace.

Each year in Ireland, between 1,800 and 2,000 people go missing. Most are returned to their family within days, but each year, about 20 people fail to turn up, causing untold heartache for the family left behind. Last year was a bad year for the families of missing people. By the end of 2001, 67 people remained untraced.

Anyone of these families will tell you the same thing; it’s the not knowing which is the hardest to bear. One day the person is there, going to work, laughing at a friend’s joke, arguing with a partner about whose turn it is to wash up, and the next day they are gone, without a trace, without a word.