Hope it’s ok if I jump in here with my own thoughts / interpretations as I heard / read various comments from, or regards comments from, FFGM - and please be so kind as to take all of this as MOO.
Setting the scene - front & centre is FFGM.
She’s an elderly lady, now lives alone in her long term home, in a familiar neighbourhood & community, after the death of her husband a few months previous; has had some leg / hip (whatever) surgery in the interim; is selling said home; was trying to get some maintenance attended to; w/m went on the blink & delay in its repair due to parts required; daughter & family were to arrive on Friday but they suddenly decided to lob up on the Thursday night (possibly had to rush to get the beds all ready, had a late night, and a wake up to the bedlam of little children, who she loved dearly but who also made her feel very tired these days)
Friday Morning - everyone up & it’s the usual morning chaos with kids excited & noisy; breakfast needs to be prepared ( by whom); FFMC getting ready for his ‘business trip’ + needing to get script filled at chemist.
Food eaten, FFMC leaves, William wants to go in garden so FFFC goes with
now it all gets confusing. FFGM just wants to sit down on the rear patio & read her paper - she’s already getting a head ache !
Her daughter (FFFC) & the children come & go, telling her about what they’ve seen or done, alternating their activities between one minute sitting & drawing quietly > next minute running, whooping & playing in the yard.
As FFGM re-found her place in the paper, she found herself thinking that it was nice to hear & see things from the delighted & innocent perspective of pre-5 yrs of age!
Suddenly - her reminiscence was interrupted by her daughter’s frantic announcement that she couldn’t find William; she’s searched everywhere but he’s nowhere to be found. Someone must have taken him !
OMG - what ? why would someone take William ? who on earth would take William ? Surely he’s here somewhere. ... let’s just regroup / rethink ...
Maybe he’s wandered off down the road somewhere - (daughter) have you checked the roads in case he’s walked off down there ? omg, surely he can’t have got to the main roads - there’s so much traffic on those roads
Ok (daughter) you check again with neighbours, I’ll look inside again . L do you know where William went to ? Did you see him go anywhere ?
Come help GM look inside ..
Now it’s Serious - no sign of William inside & upon going outside it’s obvious that FFFC has had no luck in locating him either.
FFMC now arrives home & he frantically starts to search for William, telling FFFC to call 000. .
Police arrive, the search begins, people, dogs, air search - that headache is pounding but her heart is pounding more. Where are you William ? did someone take you as she suggested ? But who would do that ? Why ?
Then Const. Wendy Hudson arrives & comes to chat ( she’s local & we’ve had so much engagement across community activities) It’s comforting so see a familiar face in some position of ‘capability’. Wendy assures me that it’ll be ok. She asks me what happened. .. and I explain as much as I can recall of the morning that led up to now & that (FFFC) had said that someone had taken William.
Wendy is a bit taken back. She asks me if I think someone has taken him. She asks me about the people around here & if I think there’s anyone who might want to harm William. OMG - I can’t even begin to think about that, surely he’s just fallen somewhere in the garden. She asks me again - I say ‘ well what about that secretive guy over the road, he seems a bit weird, what’s his story, could he be into taking children ?’
But Wendy says there’s no questions about him, he’s fully accounted for ...
Well - OK - then I’ve no f .. idea who might have done this; I’ve no idea who would want to harm William .. surely he’s not been taken, surely they’ll find him asleep in bushes somewhere .....
Wendy explained that I will be asked to give a Statement & she said ‘ Don’t stress, just tell them what you told me now & it’ll all be fine’
.........
So that’s just my Scenario of something that may be faintly like how it played out - my intention being to show that sometimes things are relevant to the Enth degree & other times it’s what we aren’t privy to that has the important context.
I truely value our care & concern for William, the awesome talent & knowledge in this team and our attempts to try to provide some value toward solving his disappearance - it’s why I joined after lurking for quite some time ( it’s the only Websleuth case that I follow) .
I do however find myself saddened & my involvement challenged, on occasions when I sense that William’s cause is forgotten - and our personal egos take over... .I know I’ve many times cancelled a post because I realised it was coming more from protecting my feelings than it was about William’s plight.
Personally, as I pray for 2022 to be the year for William, I also pray that we can be United in Our Cause & put aside the the personal agendas - after all, and thankfully, we are all individuals, our thoughts, our comments, our phrases etc. are our own individual expressions - and we are all entitled to have our individuality respected & considered.
Bless you all in 2022. May it be a year of wholesomeness & goodness for you & your families and may it bring betterment to this world .