Losing A Child At The Beach

Honestly I don’t think I have felt so panic stricken in all my life.

Last weekend we took the girls to the beach, the weather was glorious and we had everything we needed to make it the best day ever. We hadn’t been there long and Little G wanted to go down to the sea to collect some water for the moat of her castle. The girls and I walked down, leaving Mr F to look after the towels and bags. It was a straight walk through two other families. We had fun splashing in the water, Little G collected enough for her moat and we turned to walk back. Honestly I don’t quite know what happened next, I think maybe Little L tripped or needed something and so I bent down to pick her up. We were almost back at our little area and so I said to Mr F where is she? 

Where is she?

His face said it all and from there it all became a living hell. I knew she couldn’t have gone too far as it had been seconds since I had seen her. She had a red cardigan on and my eyes went from child to child, from colour to colour to find the red. I couldn’t see her anywhere.

Someone’s taken her.

It is the first thing that comes to your mind isn’t it? You fear the worst and panic sets in. What can you do? Who can you tell? I stood there searching and searching tears obscuring my view. I couldn’t not see her again. Mr F was screaming her name and people were starting to look with us. Red. A woman saw a red cardigan. I have never run so fast in all my life. She was standing watching some other children playing, completely oblivious to it all. She saw me running and I think she realised what had happened. As I scooped her up she burst into tears and my knees buckled. I didn’t want to let her go, ever.

Whenever I hear of these stories I always think how did the parents allow that to happen? But honestly it is so quick, I turned my back for a couple of seconds and she was gone. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, I should have been holding her hand, I should have kept my eyes on her at all times. But life isn’t like that, you cannot have eyes everywhere and children do run off. It has taken me a week to write this and even now I have burst into tears and can barely type. I almost lost my baby on the beach and it will haunt me forever.