Lost

Sometime last year we found ourselves in an emotional state that could only be relieved by continuous distraction. We saw as many movies as we could and drowned ourselves in serial television. We rented all the back episodes of LOST and watched them back to back. We could relate to the abstract dilemmas posted by the series: disorientation, confusion, no sense of time or place, and thousands of questions with no answers.

Never any answers.

A few days ago Dad was almost home from walking the dog when he heard an eerie wail penetrate past his earbuds: A woman from the next street was calling for her ten-year old daughter. Have you seen a little girl? she asked. She was playing in the front yard and disappeared. She had been missing for an hour.

Dad took the dog home and he and Mama went back out to the terrified Mother. The terror on her face was heartbreaking but hauntingly familiar.

"She was playing in the front yard with a new puppy. I think she's been taken."

"Don't worry," said Mama with complete certainty, "we'll find her."

As we walked the neighborhood streets we could hear other searchers calling the little girl's name. After only a few minutes of searching, a truck drove past us and the driver said: "We found her!"

She had chased the puppy about a mile away from home. It was magical to see and hear the relief and joy pour from the Mother.

But that magic was slowly washed away by the tears that followed as we walked home hand in hand. If only we could find our own lost little boy.

We've lost Henry. And we are lost without him.