Notes of
Concern…
…Jackson Blair
DARKNESS WITHIN
Remembering Etan Patz
I took a position in New York City in the mid 1970’s. Life
in that metropolis was not easy to master for a young man from the Midwest.
Within three years, the disappearance of six year old Etan
Patz was all over the newspapers, billboards and television. It was a horrific
story.
Perhaps because I moved east with three young sons the Patz
story had even more meaning for me. Every parent knows how eager a young boy is
to “grow up.” In fact, we often encourage our youngsters to “grow up” when we
are teaching them things.
In the 1970’s it would not have been at all uncommon for
young Etan to think that walking by himself from his apartment to the nearby
bus stop would be a “grown up” thing. It would also not have been uncommon for
a young mother to grant such a request. After all, what could happen in broad
daylight on the busy sidewalk during a very short walk to the bus stop.
Etan must have been so excited. Reports indicate he took a
dollar bill in his pocket so he could buy a soda.
Then fate intervened.
Etan met a teenager worker in a local bodega, someone he had
seen before and who was familiar to him. Sodas are available from bodegas so it
would not have been difficult to lure Etan to the store. As for the teenager,
he had no knowledge that Etan would walk to the bus for the very first time
that day. The two boys had a chance encounter. We will never know what
motivated the teenager, although a soda pop was clearly on Etan’s mind. I am
sure he felt safe. He would not have found it strange to be talked to by the
teenager. The teenager recognized an opportunity and he jumped at it.
If current reports are correct Etan died within minutes. He
was stuffed into a bag, carried down an alley and deposited in a dumpster.
Shortly thereafter the city workers came and took the trash to the landfill.
Between then and now every parent has had to deal with the
harsh realities of life; there are predators everywhere. The predators whether
mentally ill, high on drugs, or just plain mean are capable of the most
horrendous acts.
My family lived in a very safe and secure community on the
eastern shore of Connecticut. In all our time living there I recall nothing
even close to the Etan Patz situation.
Nevertheless, my wife walked our children to the bus every
single day. Many mothers probably changed their child rearing approach after
learning about Etan Patz. It was the right thing to do.
But Stanley and Julie Patz had no warning.
Fate descended on them and changed their lives forever.
They probably had a great deal of counseling. Their friends
and family must have surrounded them with love. In their heart of hearts they
must have assumed Etan had died. But as long as his body was not found and no
one was arrested and convicted there was always the chance, albeit a small one,
that he would one day return home.
So they never moved in three decades. They never changed
their telephone number. They never changed the message on their answering
machine. If Etan remembered and tried to come back they wanted to be right
where he knew they should be.
So when the newspapers showed pictures of a hoard of
photographers descending on Stanley Patz last week as he tried to enter his
apartment building on the day someone was charged with Etan’s murder it was in
my view the height of insensitivity.
Stan Patz, returning home to his wife Julie, to confront the
reality, the final reality, that Etan was never coming home. An answer they
waited over three decades to receive. An answer they did not ever want.
As the parent of four children and with seven grandchildren
I can only imagine the life the Patz family has lived, and will now relive, as charges are filed, witnesses are questioned,
court is held, and sentence is delivered.
The promise that was Etan Patz was never realized as his
life was cut so short.
The life that Stan and Julie dreamed was shattered three
decades ago.
The parents of children all over the world were alerted to
the dangers faced by children and held their own offspring more tightly.
May God bring whatever peace there can be to Stanley and
Julie Patz and may every parent learn to be prudent and pragmatic and watchful
every minute of every day during which they are entrusted with the care of
young lives.
For further information: jacksonblair@gmail.com
