Following up from my previous blog, "Loosing my mind – one marble at a time" I find it harder and harder to relate to my peers. People talk about summer holidays or big-screen TVs or fashion or professional sport, the Olympics or what's on TV. My eyes glaze over and I drift off. I try to pay attention and even care about what they are talking about, but I just can't relate any more. Leisure time, discretionary income – I barely remember what that means. Food, clothing, Jesse's education and other basic cost-of-living items come first but then every other expendable minute and dollar goes to finding Sigourney.
Other people bemoan matters of the heart and I can't even date any more. I jokingly say, I have post-traumatic stress disorder which renders me romantically retarded but I can't enjoy leisure time without feeling I should or could be doing something more about Sigourney. In 15 years, other than taking Jesse skiing or camping, I have been on one holiday that wasn't mostly aimed at resolving Sigourney's disappearance and as enjoyable as Belize was, I felt guilty about being away from the task at hand.
Maintaining clarity, balance and wellness are sketchy at best, but I do the best I can. At times it feels that the impact of grief is cumulative as opposed to a level or steady deterrent to my proclivity. It is an increasing challenge to mitigate the impact of depression and sadness on my effectiveness, energy and resolve. I may sound like I am feeling sorry for myself and if so, then I am not articulating properly. The point I am making is that I am sure this is a common plight for everyone who is missing a child, which in North America alone, is another 800,000 broken homes per year. It's not "all about me" – this is an epidemic problem that can't help but have a punishing impact on productivity, mental health for those impacted by it and the quality of life for society as a whole.
I would invite anyone with insights or stories of their own about the emotional roller-coaster of being impacted by a missing child to weigh in and/or share their story.
VIDEO BLOGS
Thousands of people have now seen the FOREVER SEARCHING YouTube video "Sigourney Is Missing" and "Sigourney Is Missing – Updated", thanks to you out there who have posted the video and / or shared it with others. I hope that thousands can become tens of thousands, then hundreds of thousands and by the time it reaches 1 Million, maybe Sigourney will get to see it, where ever she is and under what ever identity she might believe to be her own. So thanks for your efforts so far. It is so encouraging. If I can ask you to continue to persevere we can get the growth rate in views increasing exponentially.
I have gotten some great feed back on this video where my son Jesse and I tell our story of Sigourney over a slide show of pictures. Some have suggested that something ½ the length in time would make it easier for more people to see and still get the main message across. We are working on a commercial-sized version of one to 1 ½ minutes long to make available for mass distribution. A good friend of mine is a flight attendant and she is rallying her foreign language colleagues to help us translate a video in other European languages.
I have started Video Blogs that I plan to post periodically, like these written blogs. I have done the first one. It's raw, unpolished and unrehearsed. So, if you're in film or TV you'll hate the production quality. The point is to make it a sincere message, easy to create and easy to post. Anyone can do one of these with most digital cameras. Just set in on video, talk away and then feed it into Windows Movie Maker (or the equivalent) and add any written text over top of it you want. I would encourage everyone to make these and post them because it is easy to do. Also, I would love to get your honest feed back from them. Here's the fist one of the Sigourney Chronicles video blogs if you haven't seen it already:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5G1gLt4XLrE
Thanks for sharing some time,
Joe Chisholm
Sigourney's Dad
http://www.missingsigourney.com
http://www.myspace.com/sigourney_is_missing
About Me
- Missing Sigourney
- Sigourney was abducted by her non-custodial mother, Patricia Joan O’Byrne, on May 17, 1993 from Toronto, Ontario. Patricia, also goes by the name Trish or may be using an alias. On the 15th of May 1993, following a custody dispute with the father, O’Byrne left a message stating that she was leaving the country with her daughter, Sigourney. Patricia is wanted on charges of child abduction; there is a warrant for Patricia’s arrest. Abduction is a crime, even if the child is your own. The only consideration of the Chisholm family now, however, is to be reacquainted with Sigourney. The family treats this not as a legal or criminal matter, but as a family dispute – a solvable family dispute. They have been traced to London, Tunbridge Wells, Kent and Devon. It is believed they could be in Spain now.
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