this kid at church went missing long ago

[ashmaronaforever]

- when i was a teenager, i ran away from home for about 30+ hours

- at the time my mom panicked and asked her 'friend' at church to help look for me

-he refused, and i quote "let her go! i wouldn't even bother looking if i were you"

-my mom begged him to help, worried that i might get kidnapped or run over by a car at night.

-he refused again, saying " well she deserves it then. that's what you get when you run away, let her learn her own lessons the hard way, i wouldn't go look for her even if she were my own"

-eventually the police found me

-but my mom NEVER forgave her 'friend'at church.

- and yet this 'friend' at church would continue to make snide remarks about me running away for quite a while, even after i stopped going there, he did not stop bad mouthing me and my mom. its always the same thing, either its about my mom still being single, and me who ran away from home and what a disgrace i am.

well guess whast happened some years later in 2004?

-his son WENT MISSING, yes that's right, his own son went missing in feburary of 2004. at the time i was not informed much of the circumstances of his disappearence, and i only heard that his son was picked up by someone at school and had been missing since.

-the man went absolutely bananas. he called his neighbors and ALL his precious friends at church and got every single one of them all driving around the whole town looking for him,

-but that wasn't enough, my mom was told that he actually went down to the police station and demanded that EVERYONE at the station get on their patrol car and go look for his son but they just laughed at him told him to go home and wait for them to callback

-my mom heard that he also went to the army recruitment center with his friends and asked if they could help him, but they didn't care.

-on sunday, my mom saw him speaking on the podium at the church, about how his son's disappearance has greatly affected him and how "no father should've ever had to go through this". the pastor then asks that everying be praying for his son's safe return.

- eventually, we were told that it was his EX-wife who picked up the kid and took him away, i don't know about the rest but he did got his precious son back

-some years later, he called my mom about some fellowship group arrangment, but the conversation quickly and inevitably turned ugly, they started arguing on the phone and he yelled at my mom saying that "you wouldn't know, you aint got no son" and "she aint my daughter, i don't have to go look for her if i don't want to" and hung up.

this all happened a long time ago, but somewhere deep down i've always secretly hoped that his ex-wife had succeeded in taking him away forever, then he'd know what nonsense he said to my mom and he would carry that regret for the rest of his life thinking that he's been punished by divinity for refusing to help my mom look for me back then. but now he is a proud man because he has a son and everyone at church respects him because he's become a fellowship leader now and is an important person there.

basically, i am still upset with the treatment i got compared to what his precious son got. i mean, really, he went to the army for help, it must've been a long drive there, and he didn't even want to help my mom look for me, and she's a widow.

[right-then-petal]

hello is this real

[blackburn_stevie]

OK, here's my "Runaway" story. It is all perfectly true.

I was 7 or 8 years old and there was a problem at home between my parents and myself so I legged it. If anybody lived in Burnley at about the same time and remembers a pub called "The Tim Bobbin" they may also remember the road works just outside. It got to be late at night, long after I should have been back home from playing out, and that's where I found myself. So I went inside the workmen's hut and sat down. I must have fallen asleep 'cos the next thing that I remember is a policeman scaring me half to death when he shook my shoulder. 

He asked me my name and I told him, I was nice and polite back then. Then he took me home where my mum and dad were going frantic. They had already been to the Police station and reported me missing. The traumatic part of the story and the only bit that I can't confirm as either the truth or a story concocted by the police to make me think twice about running away again, is that the police told me that their services had been split two ways that evening 'cos they had been searching for 2 runaways. I was one and they were also out searching for another lad, same sort of age as myself, who was found dead. The implication being that if the full measure of the force had been out looking for him, he may not have died, so it was my fault that the kid died. I wore that blame for many years and still wonder if it was truth or fiction to this day.

[harry-the-fishmonger]

My eyes glazed over after "when I was a teenager"  

[ashmaronaforever]

---

@blackburn_stevie wrote:

the police told me that their services had been split two ways that evening 'cos they had been searching for 2 runaways. I was one and they were also out searching for another lad, same sort of age as myself, who was found dead. The implication being that if the full measure of the force had been out looking for him, he may not have died, so it was my fault that the kid died. I wore that blame for many years and still wonder if it was truth or fiction to this day.

---

so what that officer is saying, is that the entire police department of the entire city only has enough resources to search for ONE missing child at a time, if another child goes missing then they will have to somehow divide up that resource, and precisely because of that, its not their fault if one of them dies, because surely, its the other little runaway kid's fault because she made us devide up the millions of pounds of funding we received every year and we will tell her that so she knows why we failed our mission to save the other kidnapped child in time.

again, the great commonwealth's mighty royal police department gets miillions of pounds of funding every year, but they only have enough resources to pursuit ONE case of missing child at ONE time.

and if they should DARE take on ONE more case, then the entire ppolice department will be OVERWHELMED and they will surely screw up, then someone will die and it will NOT be their fault. HOW DARE that runaway lass divide up our recourses, HOW DARE she directly cause us to fail our mission! HOW DARE her!

don't you see?

they are going to go and tell the parents of the dead boy that we could not get to the boy in time bcause they had to deal withanother runaway child and she caused us to divide up our resources which led to his death, it was in no way, absolutely no way that the entire police force is at fault at all. it was all her fault. it was not our fault that he died. it was the other runaway kid's fault, she caused us to fail our mission.

can you see it now?

he is blaming you becuase he needs an excuse for his incompetentcy, because it was his incompentency and lack of effort that led to the other poor kid's death. and he knows it, why do you think he said that to you? knowing you would have to shoulder this guilt for life? what good will it do to you anyway?

there was malice in his intent and you must know this, and you must stop blaming yourself because it was not your fault

adults are always quick to critize others, but when they realize they are the ones to blame or its their own fault that caused it, they'll quickly come up with sad excuses and blame other people for it.

let me put it this way:

example1:

a woman in the mall's parking lot got her purse snatched by a man, so she calls the police

the police arrives and tells her that beause she called over a snatched purse, they had to go after the purse snatcher so the entire police force's resources is devided in 2 ways, therefore they were not able to prevent a crazed maniac from shooting all those poor people inside the mall itself, therefore it was the purse woman's fault and not the police fault that they failed their mission causing everyone in the shopping mall to be killed by the crazed maniac.

example2:

Willy is a police officer responding to a domestic violence case at a house on downing street, upon opening the door, he found a couple bickering and throwing a big rukus over some spilled coffee on the carpet, after calming down the couple, he received an urgent SOS signal from headquarters, who is now under attack by fire breathing sea turtles and giant vultures who proceeed to mercilessly slaughter all the cupcakes and crumpets. Willy then proceed to blame the couple, saying that the resources of the police force could be better used to defend headquarter's precious supply of crumpets than to have been used to deal with the likes of a paranoid bicking couple.

i'm half drunk right now but i'kll be right back after i get some sleep