It’s one of the very worst things that anybody can suffer through: having a loved one go missing and not know what has happened to them.
Losing someone to death can be a terrible tragedy, yes, but to live with the uncertainty of someone going missing is, in some ways, even harder. The one allows the possibility of moving on, the other tethers one forever to the past.
“Maybe” is one of the cruelest words.
Maybe he’s is still alive. Maybe she has amnesia. Maybe she just can’t communicate for some reason. Maybe that’s him kicking his boots off at the back door. Maybe he’ll come home.
There are too many people in the Cowichan Valley who are living with this open wound.
Darreld Rayner’s family and friends know all too well what this is like. His son Brent describes how even now, he sometimes still expects to hear his father’s voice. It is no wonder he hopes to find closure, after 10 years of wondering, with the discovery of human remains on the Fair Service logging road at Cowichan Lake just before Christmas. We hope he can soon stop wondering and finally, fully, grieve.
In November of 2017 we brought you the story of three mothers who are all still waiting and wondering and thinking “maybe”.
Desmond Peter, Everett Jones and Ian Henry have all, separately, disappeared from the Cowichan Valley. Peter has been missing for 10 years, Jones and Henry for two.
Where are they? What happened to them? Maybe….maybe.
It’s why we will continue to report the disappearance of Dallas McLeod, every time she goes missing, no matter how many times that is. There’s always the possibility that one of these times she will not be found safe, and our reporting on it can maybe make that difference, so her friends and family don’t join the others in limbo.