First published in the Baptist Times - OUTSIDE EDGE column - 3/12/09
My sister was kidnapped at the age of one and a half. When she left, she could walk, baby-talk, smile, and make everyone laugh by skating round the room astride Quack Quack, the duck-shaped potty.
Found and returned after six long months, she had continued to learn to speak, but not in English; she no longer smiled, and wept and hid if anyone looked at her. Our mother was advised by the doctor to establish an unvarying routine to give the traumatised child a sense of security, so there were walks at the same times every day, fixed bedtimes and regular meals, though at first she would not eat and could not sleep.
The kidnapper’s identity was always known. Defying a court injunction, our father had left the country, taking his daughter, his secretary, the house keys, furniture, car and contents of both bank accounts, while our mother was in labour with the new baby - me.
His whereabouts were not known but it was thought he might return to his own country, and eventually he turned up on his parents’ doorstep with the silent, frightened little girl. He had tried everything, he said, including immersing her in cold water, to stop her screaming. He left after a few days, saying he needed a break and would come back for her. Our grandfather phoned his daughter-in-law: ‘Come and fetch her, quickly.’
Leaving me in the care of an aunt, our mother took the next flight to fetch my sister home. The child, who had eaten nothing but morsels of cheese, clung to the one person she trusted, our father’s old governess, and had to be persuaded to leave with the distraught woman she may or may not have still recognised as her mother. She returned to England but not ‘home’.
She came back to a mother who was homeless, penniless and near breakdown, to temporary accommodation, strangers speaking a now foreign language around her - and to a baby sister she didn’t know she had. She was terrified, speechless, and didn’t respond to requests, commands or cajoling.
With hindsight, she remained in shock for years. At school, she spoke sometimes in a whisper and sometimes not at all. Teachers underrated her intelligence, berated her ‘stubbornness’ and failed to diagnose the dyslexia that accounted for her difficulties with the written word.
But she survived and, against all odds, thrived. She grew to know, over the years, that the father who was absent, unable to cope with family life or to provide for us, was not the Father who had the last word. Material needs were met, often unexpectedly and in the nick of time; people persevered with kindness; the wider family was supportive, and she learned to trust God and not be afraid of the world.
Despite pessimistic academic assessments, she acquired exam results, a college place, qualifications, and an award for excellence as a dedicated teacher of children with special needs.
Now head of department at a preparatory school, she has both the skills and the empathy to reach children who don’t fit the system. She brings to her job the qualities, painfully gained, of determination, courage, and forgiveness for the family who failed to hear her cries for those six long months of her two-year life. And an understanding that, for many children - and adults - life can be an insurmountable obstacle, tackled daily.
Jesus said there was more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner turning their life around than over hordes of good folk with no use for repentance. Maybe there are also more cheers resounding in heaven for the soul who struggles to make it to the end of the day without weeping, hiding or running away, than over all those who are more insulated from anguish, less homesick for heaven and less dependent on the Father to rescue them from exile every day.
