The Day I Lost My Daughter

The Day I Lost My Daughter

Two months ago, I lost my toddler-age daughter. Even now, sitting outside and staring out over the field where she disappeared, it’s difficult for me to process.

It’s like I know if I begin peeling back layers, the emotion of that experience will all come flooding back.

My novel How the Light Gets In had just launched, which means my mind was spinning so fast, I was not operating on all cylinders. I was sitting at the kitchen table with the French door open, so I could see my three girls who were playing in the sandbox in the yard.

I was still in the Cuddl Duds I’d worn to bed, though it was nearly noon.

Ten minutes, that’s all it took for me to lose her. I kept glancing outside to check on them, and then I would go back to my work. But clearly, that work consumed me for longer than I thought.

When I looked out again, I didn’t see my toddler’s pink shirt. I stood from the table and walked onto the patio in my socks.

“Girls?” I called to her sisters. “Have you seen Emmie?”

They looked around and shrugged. At that point, I also wasn’t too concerned.

Sometimes, the baby likes to walk over by the front door.

But she wasn’t there.

“Girls,” I said again. “I need you to help me find your sister.”

I went behind the warehouse, and she wasn’t there. That’s when I thought of the creek. I could see the silver thread weaving along the base of the thin spring trees. All the summer underbrush was gone, cutting a straight path toward the water.

I started to run. Mud squished up around my socks. I didn’t care. I ran down the hill with my feet and arms flailing. I ran up to the bank and looked up and down the creek.

No pink shirt.

I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t take time to breathe.

I started running again, up the hill. I got to the top.

“Girls!” I yelled. “I need you to help me find your sister!”

“Emmie!” they screamed. “Emmie!” They both started crying.

I was too panicked to cry.

We live in an apartment adjacent to the warehouse my husband uses for his business. I ran into the apartment—heedless of my muddy socks—and tore down the long hallway back to our master bedroom.

I looked in her nursery.

I jerked back the shower curtain in the bathroom.

I went into the room the older girls share.

She wasn’t there. I thought of the numerous sink holes. The acres of woods. The caves with their shallow, icy springs.

Suddenly, our sanctuary had become rife with terrors.

I ran out of the apartment, through the breezeway, and into the dim warehouse. I ran down the path my husband had cleared around the boxes so the girls could ride their bikes.

She wasn’t there.

I couldn’t breathe. A solid triangle of panic sat on my chest. It was getting heavier with every passing second.

I grabbed my phone from the table and called my husband. I called him while screaming her name.

He was across the field, working on our new house. It went to voicemail. I hung up and called again.

I screamed and screamed her name. My vocal chords hummed with the tension.

I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I had to find her.

Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.

How much time had passed?

Five minutes? Ten?

I ran over to the ditch near where we dump our compost scraps and saw a flash of pink. My heart thudded, but it was an old rose bouquet that had dried.

I called my husband again. I ran through the warehouse again.

When I came out, I heard my eldest daughter yell, “He found her! He found her!”

I ran out the front door. I will never forget the image of my tall husband carrying our littlest daughter across the field. My legs shook. As I drew closer, I didn’t touch her or him.

I just dropped to the ground. My older daughters collapsed around me.

All three of us cried.

“She was over by the pines,” he said.

She’d walked all that distance in bare feet.

Tears leaked into my ears. Grass prickled my back. I finally stood and looked at her.

She sucked her thumb and looked back at me with big blue eyes, as if wondering why I was upset.

My husband didn’t reprimand me for losing our offspring, though I deserved it. He simply passed our baby to me, and I held her warm, cuddly body against my aching chest.

It was one of the sweetest reunions I have ever experienced, and one of the most painful lessons I have ever learned.

Mistakes happen, yes, but amidst trying to launch a novel and “make a name for myself,” I cannot lose sight of the names that truly matter. My greatest “job” is not writing books but raising these babies.

This time is just for a season and all seasons end.

What is the hardest lesson you’ve ever learned?

Photo by Derek Thomson on Unsplash

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