I won’t give up on my child - Mothers of missing children share their plights
Published:Monday | May 11, 2015 | 12:00 AMStaff Reporter
Jennifer Capleton has not seen her daughter in two months. It was a Sunday in March and she was at the hospital with her daughter only to discover the child had left the hospital without her knowledge.
"My daughter run away before, but the last place she ran from was from out the hospital. I had taken her to the hospital one Sunday in March and she just up and left; and I have no idea where she is," she told The Gleaner.
Her daughter is only 13 years old and she worries she won't see her again.
Capleton is among scores of mothers whose children have gone missing but they refuse to give up the search for them.
"To tell you the truth," Capleton said, "I don't know if she will come back. I heard that she was somewhere in Spanish Town and I got the father to go and search for her but we still can't find her. I feel so bad that this happen, because she is full of potential. She does well in school, she is a flexible child, she can be rude when she is ready but she is very helpful."
She celebrated Mother's Day without her daughter on Sunday but Capleton is still holding on to hope that her daughter will return home.
"I want her to come back home. As much as times hard and things rough, at the end of the day, no matter how rude she is or what she do, you wouldn't like to hear that something bad has happened to her. I worry about her a lot and the whole situation just stress me out because I just want the best for her."
bittersweet story
Another mother, Angella Miller, shared her bittersweet story with The Gleaner. Sweet, because her son returned home about a week ago; bitter because she worries he will run away again.
"I don't know what it is with my son why he keeps running away. He has everything to his comfort. He has his own room, he doesn't go hungry, and apart from his little chores, he really doesn't have much to do at home. But he will go away for days to sleep on the street, and I just don't know why," she said.
Miller expressed the words of a concerned mother while speaking with The Gleaner.
"I am here struggling, it's stressing me out. My blood pressure went up. At times I just can't eat when he leaves home. At one point, CDA (Child Development Agency) took him, because they say he has uncontrollable behaviour, but I went back for him because he is my one son and I love him," she added.
Miller only has one wish.
"I wish he would just listen to me and stay home. He has so much potential and I really don't want any harm to come to him. I can't give up on him, he is my child and I feel the pain for him," she said.
Lucetta Johnson, who also spoke with The Gleaner, said that her granddaughter has gone missing for several days and she, too, was hoping that the child will come home soon.