Video Blog

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

Losing your mind - one marble at a time

I think I am loosing it. The signs of stress of being grief-stricken for over 15 years are starting to show themselves. I spend a lot of time preoccupied with what Sigourney might be thinking or going through at any given time. What is every Fathers Day like for her? I imagine, as best I can, what birthdays, X-mas and times alone with her thoughts are like for her. I sometimes concern myself with my son Jesse. Jesse and Sigourney are the only innocents here. I could have done something to prevent all this. Even Jesse's mom could have done more to discourage Patricia. But as far as Jesse is concerned, how does a 19 year old come to terms with the fact that his childhood passed from age 4 to adulthood without his sister being found and returned to his life. What's the healthy way to deal with it, express himself, relate to the outside world?

But the last week or so I have been reflecting on the toll this is having on me, on my productivity, my health and mental faculties. I think my memory is working at about 10% capacity. I have been planning on going for routine blood work every day since May 1st and here it is .. July 7^th ... and I haven't made it yet. I haven't been to my dentist in over 3 years. Work competency has fallen to the point that I risk losing my business. Things that used to give me great pleasure, I just don't do anymore. If I go to the bathroom to get nail clippers, I don't remember why I am there once I arrive. I am self employed and depend on my wits to survive, but I am clearly slipping. I need rest but I can't sleep.

Talking with friends I said that I identify as being a fighter but not a winner, I never give up, I don't succumb to escapism and I am systematic in fending off vices and excess. But I am tiring and weakening and I have no real prospects of a turn around. My mental, financial and emotional resources are bone-dry. I feel that this problem could long-ago have been solved if enough time and money were devoted to it and I blame myself for not being more resourceful. I feel like I have let Sigourney down, as well as Jesse and the rest of my family. I know Jesse loves me dearly. I know my family is full of nothing but compassion for me. But the remorse of letting them down isn't lightened by that.

I can still be funny and engaging, make people laugh and find the words and actions to bring value to other people's days. But I can't seem to find relief for my own overwhelming pain. I try to encourage myself in the earnest belief that the world is full of others who face worse burdens and greater injustices than I do, and they carry on. An example of that was an ad for a book for sale about and by a woman who was imprisoned and faced the possibility of death every day. I was on the subway and I read the book tag line "A road to forgiveness." She (the author) is an inspiration to me.

The words of another friend often help a bit. "Victory is measured in the small things." It's true, I always get all "....Hollywood...." about success and failure. Somehow success is supposed to be to the deafening cheer of well-wishers, when meeting the bell for another round is a victory in itself, especially when you fully expect to take another shit-kicking just like the round before. It's the doing within – when you're without that separates the winners and losers, not the results. I have loved Sigourney as I have Jesse, every day of her life and that love is what pushes me to get up and fight, even if I stumble and fall. I will find her, or if I die before I do, the day I die will be a day I was fighting to resolve this abnormality. I will not fade or give in. My determination is my only legacy. My blood courses in the veins of my children so they are fighters too. Fighters and lovers – in my world you can't be one without the other. They are my Yin and Yang in a life during wartime. Pleasure and wealth and happiness can be the goals of my brothers and sisters that I rub shoulders with every day, but theirs is not a life during war time, so the luxury and constraints of such pursuits are theirs by default. There is a community in their endeavours. Any ability to relate to my fellows is based on memories of simpler times.

I am losing my mind one marble at a time, without an endless supply. But today, I stagger forward in defiance – "Come and get me life, is that all you’ve got?"

Joe

Jesse and Sigourney's Dad