21 December 2006 -
Please come home for Christmas (Christmas letter to Carmel by her mum)
Dear Carmel
Your favourite song was Puff Daddy's I'll Be Missing You. How could I possibly imagine the significance? I remember you dancing around the living room and I want to cry. I miss you so much.
There's nothing you could have done that would make me love you any less.
You were such a tiny baby and you grew into such a fragile young woman, barely 5ft tall. Yet you were feisty, opinionated and utterly incorrigible.
You had a blissful childhood. Your life revolved around Sunday school and playing with the family German Shepherd, Bonnie.
But when you started secondary school, St Saviour's and St Olave's in South London, things changed. You'd been born with one leg shorter than the other. Suddenly, you were the butt of cruel jokes. Classmates nicknamed you Hop-along.
You'd always had high ambitions, but you started truanting from school. By 14, you were smoking and shoplifting. I could not believe it. We were such a tight-knit, loving, Christian family.
Now I wonder if my divorce affected you. Your father left when you were tiny. You've rarely seen him and that must have dented your self-esteem.
You were looking for love and you thought you'd found it - among a gang of drug dealers.
You started staying out nights, pretending you were with friends. I'd trawl the streets, hunting for you. Then you'd breeze in: "Sorry, Mum, it won't happen again." I'd throw my arms around you and try to believe it would all be all right.
But, of course, it wasn't. I was devastated when I discovered you were taking crack cocaine, aged 15. I pleaded with you to stop.
A year before you went missing, we moved out of our council flat in Peckham, South London, and into a lovely three-bedroom detached house in Crawley.
We wanted to give you a new start, away from the drugs and the squalor. It was a huge sacrifice for the other children, who had to say goodbye to their friends, but we loved you so much that we were prepared to try anything to keep you safe.
But you carried on disappearing back to your old haunts. You became paler and thinner. "I know I need help, Mum," you sobbed.
I was so used to you vanishing for days that I didn't worry at first when I didn't hear from you. It was only when the days turned into weeks that I began to panic.
The police discovered you were last seen at Camberwell Magistrates' Court on a shoplifting charge. Fined £5, you'd left the court with just £1 in your pocket - and vanished into thin air.
Your drug-addled friends were quizzed by the police, but they all claimed to know nothing.
Every day since then has been torture. I miss you so much my whole body aches with longing.
Some nights I dream that I find you. I hug you and beg you to come home. You smile gently: "Sorry, Mum. I'm not ready yet," you whisper. "I'll be home soon." I wake up sobbing.
So much has happened since you went. You adored children, so you'll be thrilled to know your sister Mandy has a seven-year-old son, George, as well as her little girl, Ellie, ten.
And five years ago, your brother Joe became a dad. He's named his little girl, Kara Carmel, after you. She loves looking at your photo. I tell her: "This is Auntie Carmel. She isn't with us right now, but one day she'll come home and will love you so much."
Remember how you called him Yo-Yo because you couldn't pronounce Joe? All the little ones call him that, too. I close my eyes and I can hear your voice.
The house will be full at Christmas. But nothing can disguise the aching emptiness because you're not here.
I know you'll understand why I haven't bought you any presents. For the first few years after you went, you always had a stocking stuffed with bath products and your favourite chocolates.
But seeing those presents still under the tree on Boxing Day was unbearable.
If you can't join us this Christmas, please just ring and let me know you are OK. Honestly, darling, that's all I need.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-424084/Please-come-home-Christmas.html
