I had to look at it for a second time. As I emerged from the Underground, a chalk message on a blackboard read: "The best way to find something you've lost is to buy another". It shouted at me. I was making my way home after a long day, having travelled to and from Yorkshire, and there was this message - simple. Far too simple, in fact.
It didn't of course refer to someone you may have lost. But the intimation spoke to me. We don't anticipate losing those we love. We get by on the assumption that people we hold close to us in our lives will not suddenly vanish. But that's exactly what happened to the twenty individuals I met in Leeds. One day their relative was there, going about their ordinary everyday business. Then they were gone.
Their experiences ranged in length, but the devastation was broadly similar. Wives looking for their husbands, mothers missing their sons. Siblings torn between their own acute sense of loss, and that of their parents. Whether sixteen months, or nearly ten years, those left behind are left desperately searching, wondering, hoping, fearing, and longing.
On the train journey home my colleagues and I attempted to digest some of what we'd experienced during the day. Humbled and exhausted, our conversation moved towards symbols we find meaningful. Frogs and butterflies dominated our thoughts, representing the enormous potential for transformation nature boasts in abundance.
The magnificent butterfly, emerging from the chrysalis that catalysed the transformation from its earlier manifestation as a caterpillar. The elegant and athletic frog, once spawn and then a tadpole. Radically different from their prior forms, almost unrecognisable. Those we met on Saturday represent only a tiny minority of the thousands of families living with not knowing. They are not the people they were before their loved one went missing. And yet they also are. I find myself in awe of human resilience in the face of unforeseen adversity. Incomprehensible yet undeniable.
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