I watched a 20/20 repeat tonight that was originally broadcast in 2006. It was about a young American girl named Annie McCarrick who moved to Ireland and went missing in 1993. She, along with numerous other girls who also went missing, have never been found, nor has anyone been charged with their disappearances.
I know in this world we live in stories like this are nothing new, and unfortunately, will continue to happen. But something about this one tugged at my heart more than anything. It was her father. He was so devastated over her loss. He moved to Ireland and did everything he could to find out what happened to his daughter. He loved her so much. Yes, I'm only 31 and he was around 50 when she first went missing, but looking at him I thought what an attractive, nice looking man. With an endearing Long Island accent.
Then the broadcast would revisit the story throughout the years, and each time this attractive, sweet man who missed his daughter so dearly, looked much older, sicker, and thinner. Eventually he was so sick and frail he became wheelchair-bound, and looked like a skeleton of his previous self. He looked like he had aged 20 years. He said he had never been sick before he lost his daughter. All he did now was sit in his dark livingroom with the shades down, after a divorce from his wife due to the strain this caused their relationship, with only himself and thoughts of what happened to his only child. Thoughts about wondering what it would've been like to have been a grandfather. At the same time he never gave up hope that one day they'd find his daughter and bring the person responsible to justice.
My heart ached for him as I watched the program, almost like it would ache for my own father. After the show ended, I decided to google this story hoping to find that he was able to find peace and closure with a capture of the criminal who took his daughter, as this show last aired in 2006. But instead I found an obituary...about this poor man himself. He recently passed away from his heartache and deteriorating condition due to the fact that he missed his daughter so much and never had peace with her death.
I like to imagine this was God's way of ending his suffering and finally bringing him back together with his beloved daughter. But even with that thought, I am still so saddened at this man's last years on earth...his constant pain and agony over his loss. To see how he was and what he had become over those few short years just break my heart. Why does there have to be so much pain and heartache in this world.
