“I remember us singing along, giggling as kids, listening to my Mum’s favourite song from the ’60s, shouting Aline playfully to the top of our lungs in the warm kitchen filled with the wonderful smell of heartful, comforting dishes my Mum was baking… you see, my Mum was a strong woman and a sweet soul. Food was her language, her lyrics were sweet like honey, love-full, warm-full …  

I remember her feeling so special to have a love song named after her, smiling, listening to us, and joining in...  

Little did we know that this song would become her reality, our reality, the lyrics depicting her fate as she went missing during a rainy month of May nine years ago, near rivers she might have fallen into… “

Translation of Aline, Christophe, 1965 (Christophe, 2012)

I had drawn on the sand
her sweet face smiling at me
then it rained on this beach

she disappeared in this storm
And I yelled, yelled, Aline, for her to come back
And I cried, cried, oh! I had too much sorrow.
I sat down next to her soul, but the lovely lady had gone away
I searched for her without believing it anymore
and without a hope to guide me
And I yelled, yelled, Aline, for her to come back
And I cried, cried, oh! I had too much sorrow.
I've only kept this sweet face
like a shipwreck on the wet sand...

“I remember the dark veil of bewilderment, closing like a heavy stage drape before our eyes as my brother and I listened to that song we had not heard for years on the radio while preparing to search for my Mum…the visceral pain, the absurdity of life sung before us.. telling us that her story had already been written and that we might not be able to change the denouement despite all…but that despite all we will never give up hope to find her…. 

The absurdity of life… reminiscent of the myth of Sisyphus and Victor Frenkel. How to find meaning in the very midst of the desert, a way out of despair? 

As we were shouting Aline like cubs calling their Mum for protection because they would not be able to survive alone in the wildness without her, we were shouting maman “Aline” at the top of our lungs because she would not be able to survive alone in the wildness without us…

Little did we know that the trauma of searching for her would still be as vivid today as nine years ago as we never found her... “ (Waschnig, 2022).

“The policeman tapped his pen on the counter…

“What?” he said “a DNA search on the Interpol register? What the hell is that?”

He looked down at his notebook, “Look”, he continued, “your Mum went missing NINE years ago.” “We won’t have ANYTHING in our files”, he said, “Her case is closed. We don’t have any record”    

Don’t they understand?  

For me, 

“The case” is never, ever closed 

It is 

9 years of not knowing, 

9 years of going from hope to despair, 

9 years of visceral pain that wakes you up in the middle of the night, 

9 years I want to know where she is, 

3285 days of not being able to “move on”, 

78840 hours of suffering… 

So yes, I want YOU to look for her, 

I want YOU to do something and stop wondering why I am still looking for her after so long…   

So yes, I want YOU to look if she can be found even dead

I want to be able to remember the good memories, 

I want to stop thinking of the search poster picture, 

the search dogs, 

the forests,

the sleepless nights, 

the endless days and nights I cried, ripping my heart apart because

I didn’t save her… 

So yes, it is my RIGHT, 

I have the RIGHT to know, 

I have the RIGHT to demand your help even 9 years on…. 

I DO, Don’t I? (Waschnig, 2022)”