21st December 2021
I wasn't going to write anything this Christmas.
I don't really have any news.
The man who contacted us last year hasn't been in touch again.
We've followed up every lead we can think of, and none of them has taken us any further. Urbesc construction doesn’t seem to exist, but is he only link we have to Site 42 and our missing family members.
Some of the group have stopped attending meetings.
Others are still here, quietly helping whenever they can.
We managed to have a little Christmas gathering last weekend.
It was lovely, actually.
Sarah brought homemade cakes. Somebody brought far too many mince pies.
We put photographs of our missing loved ones on a small table.
Nothing formal.
Just a way of remembering why we're all there.
Daniel would have been thirty this year.
Josh would have laughed at how old we're all getting.
I found a photograph of him the other day. He's standing in the kitchen holding a burnt pizza and grinning like an idiot.
I cried for about twenty minutes.
Then I laughed.
Then I cried again.
That's what it's like now.
Not the constant panic of those first few months, but something quieter that never really goes away.
People ask whether I've accepted what happened.
How can I?
I don't know what happened.
I don't know whether Josh is alive, whether he's hurt, or whether he chose to disappear.
I don't even know which possibility frightens me most.
But I know this.
There are people who still care.
People who remember his name.
People who haven't given up.
And for now, that's enough to get me through another Christmas.
If you're missing somebody this year, I hope you know you're not alone.
