The Summer Of Etan Patz

I haven't written anything for this page for a while. Why? Sometimes nothing seems worthwhile. Sometimes nothing matters. Sometimes all you see is sadness. Sometimes it is better to just wait and listen - because there is a message waiting to be heard; a lesson waiting to be learned.

Two things.

We have all suffered loss but loss involving children is the cruelest. In May of 1979, I was living in New York City. Two days after my son's fifth birthday, a little boy named Etan Patz disappeared from a street not far from mine. He was only six years old and disappeared on his way to the school bus. That summer, everywhere I went, I would see his poster. Every bus, every subway car and all the walls around the construction sites, plastered with his picture. When I saw the picture of his sweet smile it reminded me of my son. I couldn't imagine the pain his family was feeling. How did they feel when they saw the picture? I would see kids on the street that resembled him and I would stare to make sure it wasn't the child on the poster. I never actually saw him, of course, and nobody else did either. I wished and prayed but he was never found. It was a sad summer in New York.

They were talking about it again on the news this week and how he became the first missing kid on the milk cartons. He became a symbol for every abducted, murdered, abused and mistreated child since.

That story reminded me of one that nobody talked about on the news this week. In November of 1987, Lisa Steinberg, age six, was murdered by her "adopted" father Joel while he was in a crack cocaine stupor. He was a lawyer and was paroled and released from prison in 2004. I've never understood how that could happen.

I guess someone had to forgive him and assume he is safe to be out on the street near children again. It takes a leap of faith I have a hard time understanding. But I am not by nature a naturally positive person.

The other news story that hit me hard this week: The woman who was mauled, blinded and maimed by a crazed chimpanzee expressed her regret and sadness at the death of her friend who owned the chimp. That chimpanzee tore off her face and hands and left her blind.

She said she can't stay angry about what happened to her. She doesn't want to live in anger.

She is hoping for new prosthetic hands, so that she can learn to feed herself, and she needs new face construction with lips so that she can eat more easily. She was also planning on going to a relative's college graduation and doesn't want to be hidden away from the crowd. She wants to be among the audience and feel all the happiness and joy around her. She wants life.

Now, I have no idea if she is a naturally positive person. Perhaps she was always optimistic, generous and helpful. Her desire to help her friend control the chimp was what led to her injuries. Her attitude shames me and maybe shames us all. She doesn't want to live in anger. She doesn't want to live in sadness.

She wants life. Life - with all it's difficulties.

A message and a lesson.