Читать книгу Missing - Every Year, Thousands of People Vanish Without Trace. Here are the True Stories Behind Some of These Mysteries - Rose Rouse - Страница 7

A book about missing people is inevitably an intensely intimate endeavour. I spent three months interviewing mothers, wives, fathers, sons, daughters, brothers and sisters about the loved ones that had disappeared from their lives, including birth parents and some relatives who were found. In one case, I actually interviewed the teenager herself who had run away from home. Writing this book was a daunting task in terms of discovery about people’s lives. Missing people disappear for all sorts of reasons – there is no one easy answer. The harsh reality is that, in some cases, people go missing and years later there may still be no explanation.

However, the relatives of the missing always have an unbearable burden to shoulder. These are the very people who generously let me into their heartache, turmoil and grief without making me feel like an intruder. Often, I shared their anguish and determination to carry on searching. At other times, I shared the joy of their reunions. I was, at all times, honoured to be part of their journey.

These are stories of lives that have been shattered by a disappearance but, more than that, these are the tales of relatives who have refused to give up on their missing loved ones. They are still fighting to find out where they are and what happened to them. They are brave, ordinary people whose lives have been irrevocably transformed by circumstances beyond their control. I admire their fortitude. Fate has dealt them an extraordinary and tortuous pathway. They navigate it with grace.

They struggle between searching for the truth and accepting the not knowing. It is an uneasy dynamic. I can only hope that they find some peace and that the stories in this book in a small way acknowledge and affirm both their own lives and those of the missing.

Towards the end of this endeavour, four-year-old Madeleine McCann went missing. The unprecedented coverage of her disappearance has brought deserved attention to the issue and I have included her story because a book about missing people would be incomplete without it.

All stories are true. However, I have had to change some names in order to protect the participants and have indicated where this is the case in the text.

Rose Rouse

February 2008