HAVING CHILDREN STOLEN AWAY

No prior experience can prepare one for the emotional trauma that ensues when one's child is stolen away. If it happens to be two children at once, the trauma is doubled. In my case, it was all four of my children at one time, so the anguish and despair was four-fold.

Initially, I just shut down. I was in shock. I completely shut down emotionally. For some time, I could not respond to any one or any thing.

Then, I became filled with anger, great, great anger. The feelings of helpless rage and frustration became constant.

If I could have laid hands on the person, or persons responsible, I would have fought to their death, or my own.

I was beyond reason. I was beyond rational thought. I wanted my children returned. I wanted revenge.

I had always tended to be a quiet, somewhat introverted person. I became much more so. I took the pain inside my self. I suffered within and hoped that other people didn't notice.

By profession, I was a lifetime educator. I was a classroom teacher. I was a school administrator. It became impossible for me to be around students of the same age ranges of my own children.

I dropped out of the teaching profession for a number of years. .I just could not handle the inner anguish and the vestiges of rage. It never left me.

The sincere good wishes and heartfelt empathy of family and friends were not enough to help me begin a healing process. I was just too hurt and too stubborn.

As things eventuated, I became one of the very fortunate few among those parents who experience having their children stolen. After two years and seven months, our prayers were answered. F.B.I. Investigators and the National Child Find Organization, found my children.
The trauma of their experiences might be life long, but they were not damaged beyond repair. The four of them have now completed college and have begun their own careers.

It was not until after the miracle of finding them, that I was able to start to return to sanity and emotional stability.

It was not until some years later that I was recovered enough to contemplate returning to the teaching profession.

Memories do not die easily. Indeed, some never die at all. Emotions that accompany traumatic events come back full force when memories of those events come back.

Although my children recovered long ago, during the weeks of September I still experience anguish and upset.

I still cry when watching children of the ages that mine were when they were taken. But now, the tears are of gratitude and thankfulness rather than anguish and despair.

Learn more about this author, Calsue Murray.
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