For those of you who I haven't been in touch with in quite some time, I wanted to share a post on my parenting board on June 11, 2009.
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When Steve was missing, I called 911 and they dispatched a police officer, Sean Gaston. He was with me, by my side, every step of the way that day. He took pictures from my wallet and canvassed the adjoining stores (it’s a HUGE shopping center). He pushed the Wal-Mart security department to let me watch the surveillance tapes to see if I saw Steve. He kept me together that day – always thinking, always looking. I was adamant that Steve’s story and picture be on the 5pm news – there was no good reason why he was missing, and he never would have left the store on his own.
After hours of searching with absolutely nothing to show for it, we began to worry that he had been abducted or hurt. If that was the case, someone had to have seen something. About 4:45pm, Sean came to me and asked for a picture – he’d finally gotten the ear of someone and Steve’s story and picture would be on the 5pm news but he had to go NOW. So, off he went. At 5:05 pm, I walked to the back of Wal-Mart and 10 minutes later, I found Steve’s body in the bathroom stall. From that point on, I don’t remember much as far as details – I remember screaming and yelling and hitting the walls. The coroner came in, the detectives came in, the grief response team came in… I remember the gurney. It was all a blur. At about 8pm, I headed home with friends to wait for Laurie.
About a month later, Sean reached out to me to see how I was. I was numb and in a really bad place. He told me that Steve’s death had affected him a great deal. We weren’t on the phone long – I just couldn’t do it. But every time I have retold my story from that day, Sean was an integral part of the equation. I’ve often thought of reaching out to him but it just didn’t feel right – still too emotional.
About 10 days ago, Bear and I went out to dinner and he ended up playing peek-a-boo with a bunch of cops around the corner. Eventually, one of the female cops came over and talked with him, gave him some stickers, etc. We struck up a conversation and I finally asked if she knew Sean. Yup, they all did – great guy, was now their Warrant Officer, etc. I gave her my email address and phone number and asked her to pass my information on to him. He called last week and we set a time to meet last night.
I hadn’t seen him since the moment we said goodbye, when he headed to the police station for the press release. I found out that he’d finally talked to his Lieutenant and said that he knew Steve’s story didn’t fit the profile for newscasts – but he knew in his gut I knew my husband and he knew in his gut that something was very wrong. I remember saying goodbye that night and it adding to my fear – he’d been by my side through it all and I felt like I was on my own. I remember making him promise to come back and he said he’d be back after he was done with the press release – I was afraid that I’d never find Steve but with him there, I at least had some pull. So, fast forward 22 months and 3 days – and we met last night. I can’t even tell you what a huge step in my healing meeting with him was.
You could tell we were both really appreciative of the chance to meet again. Big hugs in the parking lot – lots of emotion. We sat together for an hour, reliving that horrible day. Between us, we can both account for every single second of August 7, 2007 as if it were yesterday. He shared with me that in all of his years as a cop (about 15), he has never been affected by a case like he was Steve’s. He said up until that day, all of his calls had been normal – straight forward. He said he had always been able to separate it as business – those other cases didn’t affect him personally, until Steve. He’s been beating himself up for 22 months because he felt he should have done more, he shouldn’t have accepted their word that the bathrooms were empty, and that he wished he could have been the one to tell me Steve was gone – that I shouldn’t have found him the way I did. I stressed to him that he did everything he could have done – we both did the best we could with what we had. He called his wife that night and told her that he was okay, but that he’d had a bad day and in that respect, he wasn’t okay and then he drove around for about 6 hours. His Lt. even told him he did everything. I pointed out to him on our way out that most cops would have handed me the missing persons report and drove of – he didn’t.
He also felt bad because he came back to Walmart after Steve’s body was found (he has just walked into the police station, to meet with the public affairs officer to get the press release out when they asked him if the guy they’d been looking at was at Walmart – he said yes and the PAO responded “they’ve found Steve’s body.”) When he came back to Walmart, he said he wanted to see me but emotionally, he just couldn’t. Once he said that, I remembered someone telling me that, that night, but I’d forgotten. I just knew we hadn’t connected again. I think meeting again was as therapeutic and healing for him as it was for me. We talked a lot about that day, the specifics, filled in the gaps…
He was very clear that if I ever needed anything, to let him know and he’d be there – gave me his personal email and cell phone number… We also promised to keep in touch – that day brought us together and had an impact on both of us. Personally, it feels like I’ve reached another one of those invisible milestones in my healing – a milestone that I didn’t know was there until I got past it and realized how important it was, after all.
