Thursday, May 16, 2013

Gone Missing



Even though it's from the satiric newspaper The Onion, this story resonated and made me laugh out loud:

ROANOKE, VA—According to reports from stunned Melberg family sources, Mom just walked up the stairs, slammed the door to her bedroom, and locked it.
The shocking incident occurred shortly before dinner time in the Melberg home at 46 Fairmoor St. Although Mom had reportedly been silently chopping vegetables in the kitchen, showing no signs of outward agitation or anger, multiple sources confirmed seeing her walk briskly through the living room and up the stairs before locking herself in her bedroom at approximately 6:38 p.m.

It reminded me of some notes I'd scratched in my little purse notebook the other day when I was listening to NPR in the carpool line at The Brothers' school. I was listening to a story related to the saving of the three women who had been kidnapped and held hostage for nearly a decade in Ohio. The woman on the program was some kind of official at a national organization that compiles data on missing persons, and she had a thick, lovely southern accent. She sounded matter-of-fact and kind at the same time even though she was basically detailing statistics about how many people "go missing" each year, how many are found and how many of these are children, runaways, etc. As you might suspect, while there are hundreds of thousands of people reported missing each year, most are resolved and only a tiny percentage are open cases. At some point in the woman's discussion, she said (in her thick southern accent) -- and I'll paraphrase here -- that some folks just go missin' on their own accord. They up and leave their families and disappear. They might start a new life in some other place, change their name, you name it. It's your right to go missin' and some do just that. 

Reader, despite the gravity of the Ohio story and the prospect of losing one's child, I practically burst out laughing when she spoke. I thought, as I sat in the carpool line I want to just go missing. Now, before you act all concerned and leave earnest comments, I'm not threatening to go missing. I'm just saying. 


17 comments:

  1. Roanoke, VA is my hometown!! Perhaps if Mrs. Melberg had heeded the sage advice of Pat Robertson and treated her husband well (I suppose being at his beck and call and everything else) she probably would have been happy with him (even if he were having an affair) and would have had no need to go missing!!

    Best,
    Bonnie

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  2. Honey- name me one mother on this earth who hasn't considered going missing at one point or another. I certainly have. And sometimes, to be quite honest, still do.

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  3. I would go missing if I could and I'm nobody's mother...

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  4. once, when my daughter was a baby, I left the dining table and went out for a long walk to calm myself down. My poor husband was afraid I'd never come back. Been there, done that. Many times.

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  5. I love this post, and the comments!

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  6. I am not the least bit alarmed, sister!

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  7. Totally, utterly able to relate....!

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  8. I did that once. Just ... left. Didn't go back. Best thing I ever did. That was before I had kids, though.

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  9. I think most of us can identify with that impulse on some level!

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  10. Just last night I was driving by the airport and was considering how nice it would be to go missing, even just for a little while.

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  11. Loved the Onion piece. I wanted to leave my family more than once years ago. One night just before supper when everyone was being a shit I walked out the door and started driving west. I did finally turn around but I wanted to keep going. There's a book by Anne Tyler, "Ladder of Years" that is about just such a thing, walking away from your family.

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  12. I'm not just threatening to go missing, I'm planning on it and soon. For a couple of weeks at least. Just to save what little is left of my mind.
    Loved this post!

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  13. 10 years or so ago I used to go back and forth between my one son still at home, my husband and two of my daughters on the west coast who were having babies and miscarriages. Sometimes I just wanted to get off the train n some little town and disappear. I guess that was better than thinking about running the pickup into a tree. Anyway, it all worked out in the end and I didn't get off the train.

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