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Friday, October 5, 2018

October 5, 2018 -- I know I can do it... just give me a minute.

So I have alluded to the problem, but so far, I have skirted around it, as a person would circumvent a train wreck. This problem is my unwillingness to actually face my own emotions after such a long time. So, I will try today to actually come out and say it...er, write it.

This feels like I am telling someone, like I am going to bring up the courage, to tell someone some  really shocking story. Probably not shocking to many people, I mean, we live in a time when the most horrific things are done. We are desensitized to the violence, unremarked at the depraved and malicious, the malevolent in our midst.

But to me, in my own little world, a rather calm, normal, unremarkable world, this was unheard of. Something of movies, television shows, books... not of life itself.

Easter Sunday, that day that was masquerading as a normal, conventional day, was the day that our lives were shattered. We started out as a family, like a normal family, and ended up shattered and broken.

When my mother started to be worried about my father not coming home from work, she decided that she and my older sister would go the route that my father took to work every day, to see if maybe there had been a flat or some mechanical problem. My father was never late home, he was always prompt, and he was very careful to call ahead and let my mother know if there were any stops he had to make.

No phone calls that evening, nothing to make anyone believe there was any problem at all. Since this was a long time before mobile phones that could be carried around in the car or your hip pocket, it would be harder for my father to let anyone know if he had a flat on the freeway or if he ran out of gas or what ever could be the problem.

I stayed home with my sister's two children. The toddler that was a year and a half, the baby who was just three months old.  I didn't mind watching them, since it was late in the evening, they were both sleeping anyway, I was getting ready for bed myself. As a matter of fact, I was washing my face and getting ready for bed when the phone rang.

I didn't recognize the person on the other end, but I will never forget his voice. I will never forget what he said. There are some things that you can try to forget, but they are stuck in memory like mosquitoes in amber, they just stay put in your brain. He said, and I will not quote, that is too painful, too stark for me to even post. I just can't...

He said, we have Mr ----. If you want to see him alive, you need to bring X amount of money.

I was shocked, I was in disbelief. This is not happening. This must be some type of sick joke.


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