All my life, autumn was my favourite season, especially late September and early October.
The crops are harvested. The air is cool but not bitterly cold. The winds are strong, but the sun still has enough strength left to warm your face.
Then came Thanksgiving 2023, and twelve days of hell.
Three years ago today, after twelve days of searching for my son, David, who was reported missing on October 9th, the RCMP in North Vancouver and the Vancouver City Police found his car, abandoned. They began a grid search of the area.
During those awful days, so many people on both coasts reached out. They offered support, joined the search, and hoped with me for his safe return. David and his family lived on the west coast. I was more than 5,000 kilometres away on the east coast, unable to do anything but wait.
On the evening of the 20th, the RCMP officer I had been dealing with called to tell me about the car and the preparations for the grid search. When I heard those words, I knew in my heart they were no longer looking for a living person.
I waited all day on the 21st for the update call she had promised. By evening I hadn’t heard a word. My nerves were shattered, and I could feel my blood pressure pounding in my ears.
I lay down in bed with a book, hoping to quiet my racing mind, even for a little while. As always, I closed my social media and put my phone on the charger. But I left it on, set to ring, in case there was anything to report.
I don’t know what I was reading. I’m fairly sure I read the same page over and over.
When the phone rang, I nearly fell out of bed. I grabbed it and answered at once. It was my brother, Jerry, calling from Ontario. I almost told him I couldn’t talk because I was waiting for the call from the North Van RCMP.
There was a catch in his voice as he asked if I was doing ok.
“Not really,” I said. “I’m waiting to hear if they found him today.”
Jerry hesitated. Then he said, “So, that notice on Facebook isn’t true?”
“WHAT notice?” I yelled, already fumbling with the screen, already tapping the Facebook icon.
There it was: Missing North Vancouver man found deceased. And beside it, a hideous photo, the last selfie David ever took.
I told Jerry I had to go and hung up. I ran to tell Joel. I could barely breathe.
I dialed the North Vancouver RCMP with shaking hands, praying the notice wasn’t real. The woman I had been dealing with all those days was off duty, so I was passed from person to person until someone who seemed to know what was happening told me that David’s “remains” had been found in a park near where his car was found.
Remains.
My world went dark.
I howled into the phone, heartbroken and furious at once.
How DARE they post that notice before telling me?
“Did anyone tell his wife and children?” I asked.
She assured me that a Community Outreach worker had gone to the house to tell them in person and offer support.
“Did anyone tell his father?”
“No,” she said. “We have no contact information for him.”
I lost it then. Ian had been talking to them. He and his wife live in Burnaby, not far from the park where David was found.
“How could you let me, his MOTHER, learn this from Facebook?”
She had no answer, only a brief apology. It was not nearly enough.
And so I had the dubious honour of calling David’s father myself, to tell him in my own voice that our son was gone. He and his wife were devastated. Living closer, they had seen far more of David over the years than I had. I had only occasional phone calls, birthday and Christmas cards, and my yearly trek across this vast country to spend time with my grandchildren. I carry that, too.
Next I called David’s stepfather, Dan, and his wife. They live in New Brunswick, and Dan had been a big part of David’s life all through his school years. They were just as devastated.
It took me a long time to face the loss. My wonderful sisters and brothers surrounded me with love, as did my close friends. My husband, Joel, was my rock, even though he and his ex-wife, Kerry, had lost their only daughter the year before.
For months I went to therapy. I drove the back roads of our rural area, trying to lose myself in photography. I joined a grief recovery group. I tried so hard to “get a grip” on my emotions.
Life goes on. I stay busy with the photography club, with friends and family, with books and mind-numbing TV.
But I’m quieter now. I find myself withdrawing from things just to catch my breath. Some part of me still doesn’t believe it. I keep hoping someone will call and tell me it was all a mistake, that David is alive and well, living on a warm, sandy beach somewhere in the sun.
It’s not true.
Another year has passed, and I will cope with it, as I always do. But as I am now in my late seventies, my energy, patience and tolerance are faltering. And the season I once loved now arrives each year carrying that night with it.
My memories of my beautiful baby, my handsome son, keep me going each day.
A year later, I received the BC Coroner’s report that explained how he died and also reassured me that there were no drugs and only a little alcohol in his system – probably for false courage. That was a relief.
