Like many,many other people, especially I guess mothers, I have been watching the terrible story of the little boy who went missing in Edinburgh. Apparently his mother went to wake the little three-year old on Wednesday morning and he wasn’t in his bed, or his bedroom, or the flat where they lived. My heart lurched at the thought of it… and although my children are almost adult, I got in touch with them straight away.
The news unfurled… concerned neighbours, people who didn’t even know the family, complete strangers went out looking for the little boy, searching day and night with the police and the emergency services. I had a terrible feeling when there had been no sight of him after twelve hours… a little one wandering the streets would soon have been spotted, by a friendly person… or maybe someone with an ill intention in their heart…
A day and a night passed and it seemed there would be no happy ending for anyone… and yesterday a little body was found, and last night the boy’s mother was arrested…
What a heart-breaking tragedy, it hardly bears thinking about. If there is any good to be seen in this, then it is the community around the child’s neighbourhood, who came together and tried so hard to find the little boy, and who cared so much for the child that they went out into the winter night to look for him.
Lois Elsden 