Stolen

Spike of ice, stabs my heart,

As I see the other parents depart.

My daughter is nowhere to be seen,

This is so not like her.

This is her first year of school

And four months in she has never been late!

I stride purposefully through the gates,

Searching, scrounging, seeking her within,

Alas it is all in vain, a futile search.

Fear gripping tightly at my strings,

I sprint frantically to my van,

Hot tears streaming down my face.

I refuse to yield to despair...

At least for now.

I rip the door open and seize my phone.

It rings for an eternity,

I bark at the officer on the other side,

"My child! She is gone!"

I remember not much from then on,

It all seems to have folded in and over each other.

A jumbled mess of moments,

Stitched haphazardly together.

As the days go by and no results,

I sink deeper into depression. 

My love, my life, gone in a moment.

...

Like a lightning bolt piercing the sky, 

An epiphany seizes me, takes a firm hold,

I will search for her, no matter how long,

No matter how far I must go.

My daughter I will find! 

New purpose aquired,

New life flowing through me,

I have a purpose again,

A task of epic proportions. 

...

Without a word of goodbye,

I speed my van to who knows where,

A beginning anywhere is better than none.

As the days turn into weeks,

I search on undaunted by the sheer scale,

Of what I endeavour to achieve.

I am filled with hope, a sense of purpose.

I shall succeed where others have failed.

Town after town rolls by,

People questioned, number left behind.

All wish me luck, few actually believe.

I will prove them wrong and this fuels me.

...

Weeks morph into months,

As my van eats up the miles,

Yet no joy do I find in my search.

All I find are others, stripped of loved ones.

I take them to heart, I know their pain,

From each of them, the pictures of the missing,

Go onto my van, a collage of those who are gone.

I grow more resolute because of them.

If I can help just one family reunite,

My quest will not be in vain.

...

I am not ashamed to admit,

That every night I cry before sleep. 

How else can I cope with this emptiness? 

...

Before long, years have come and gone,

I am no closer to a happy resolution.

My daughter was six when she was taken,

Now she will be sixteen!

Tears well at the thought of the lost years.

Other thoughts jump onto my train of musings.

What if she does not remember me?

Ten years I have spent scouring the land,

Like a tsunami crashing upon a coastal village.

To no avail...

I am spent, tired, almost on the verge of surrender.

The hope and faith I once had is all but gone.

My van idles next to the road,

As my head rests upon the steering wheel.

Which way shall I go?

Home?

Onwards, for how many more years?

Next to me my phone rings,

I have not the energy to answer. 

I have done over two hundred thousand kilometers,

My van is as weary as I am.

How much longer can she keep going?

...

I reach down and answer my phone,

It takes all of my energy just to do that.

I have decided to go home,

I have no more to give...finished! 

...

A soft females voice greets me,

I mumble back, uncaring.

Her next words rip through me like a tornado,

"I know where your daughter is..."

She has not even finished talking

and I am weeping like a child,

Unashamed,  unabashed, uncontrollably.

The silence on the other side,

As she awaits my return to sanity,

Is comforting yet surprising for me.

Within moments I am racing to her,

To my daughter, my hope, faith restored.

My van grumbles, complains at the exertion,

But it faithfully and unwaveringly surges on.

What a sight I must have been,

Laughing, crying, in hysterics to passersby. 

Yet I cared not!

I was on my way to my final destination,

My daughter.

...

I stormed into the police waiting room,

Like an unleashed Spanish bull.

I froze in my stride when my eyes met hers,

Turned to stone as if I had seen Medusa. 

One word issued from her lips,

A word I had longed to hear all these years.

"Daddy!"

One word that healed my hurt,

Took away my entire ordeal.

I rushed forward but was stopped.

Eight feet away stood my daughter,

She had hardly changed from what I could remember.

I was overjoyed that she remembered me.

They explained that it was a mere formality,

A DNA test must be done!

So close and I could not hug my daughter,

Feel her, touch her, hold her.

What were a few more moments apart,

When I had spent a decade searching?

I would like to claim I waited patiently,

But that is not the case!

...

The moment arrived and when I saw,

Saw his smile, I knew before he uttered his verdict.

She was...no is my daughter.

We crashed into each other like a wrecking ball into a wall.

We cried, we laughed, we hugged, till we hurt.

I had my daughter and I was not going to let go.

Ever!

Well, maybe so we can go home...together.

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