Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
I STILL BUY BIRTHDAY PRESENTS FOR WHEN WE FIND MADDIE
Kate and Gerry McCann on ‘stolen 10 years’ since daughter vanished
KATE McCann today reveals she still buys presents for Madeleine and will do so next week – her 14th birthday.
She longs to hand the gifts to her daughter, missing for 10 years. Kate, 49, says in an interview: “We should have been a family of five all that time. It feels stolen.”
PICTURES of Madeleine still adorn their house. Mum Kate buys presents for her daughter every birthday – and will do so again in the coming days.
But after 10 years of hoping, waiting, praying – every day – for a miracle, the McCanns have had to adapt from being a family of five to a family of four.
That doesn’t mean giving up on Madeleine. But, as they spell out so movingly today, it does mean giving twins Sean and Amelie – Madeleine’s beloved little playmates, now aged 12 – a happy and fulfilling life of their own.
The couple reveal they still live in hope of finding Madeleine, but do not hide the pain of the decade without her. Kate, 49, says: “It’s time we should have had with Madeleine.
We should have been a family of five for all that time. It just feels stolen.”
Husband Gerry, 48, adds: “Before Madeleine was taken, we felt we had managed to achieve our little perfect nuclear family of five. We had that for a short period and, almost the same way as if your child becomes ill or seriously ill, or has died, like many other families have suffered... then your vision is altered and you have to adapt.
“You adapt and you have a new normality. Unfortunately for us a new normality is a family of four. But we have adapted, that’s important.”
GOALS
The couple open their heart in an interview with the BBC’s Fiona Bruce. It was on May 3, 2007 that Madeleine, almost four, vanished from a holiday flat in Praia da Luz, Portugal. She should be with her family in Rothley, Leics, celebrating her 14th birthday in 12 days’ time.
In their deeply moving interview, broadcast today, the McCanns say they still have hope and vow to carry on doing “whatever it takes for as long as it takes” to find their daughter.
Kate speaks about the twins and explains: “One of our goals – while obviously ultimately finding Madeleine – was to ensure Sean and Amelie have a very normal, happy and fulfilling life and we’ll do everything that we can to ensure that. Obviously massive events like this cause a lot of reaction, a lot of trauma and upset. But ultimately you have to keep going, especially when you have got other children involved.”
Kate tells how she still buys birthday and Christmas gifts in the hope she will one day be able to hand them all to Madeleine.
She adds: “I do all the present buying. I obviously have to think about what age she is and something that, whenever we find her, will still be appropriate so there’s a lot of thought goes into it. But I couldn’t not, you know, she’s still our daughter, she’ll always be our daughter. Madeleine is part of our life, there’s photographs all round the house. Whether it be a birthday, family occasion or even an achievement or something, that is kind of when you really feel her absence.”
Kate admits she gave up work after Madeleine’s disappearance as the idea of trusting someone else to look after the twins was unthinkable. She says: “I didn’t want to let them out of my sight.” A former GP, she also reveals she has now returned to work, adding: “I am back into medicine, but a different area to my general practice. That was a big step to re-establish as normal a life as possible. Life’s busy. It keeps us going.”
The couple express fears for the twins and how they might be affected by online trolls who post vile slurs about the case.
Gerry, a hospital cardiologist, says: “We have been as open with them as we can. We have told them about things and people writing things that are untrue and they need to be aware of that. I don’t want to dwell on the negative aspects too long, but people just need to think twice before they write and the effect it has.
“I think we’ve seen the worst and the best of human nature and our experience, rather than on the internet, has been overwhelmingly seeing the better side of human nature.
“We’ve had fantastic support and because there’s a lot of attention now around the anniversary, we are starting to see that again.”
Of Wednesday, 10 years since Madeleine went missing, Kate says: “Every day is another day, without Madeleine. That 10-year mark makes it
more significant. I think we’ll get by as any other year really, surrounded by family and friends, remembering Madeleine, as we always have.”
Gerry adds: “I think the day and the poignancy of it, that we don’t tend to go back to the time, because it’s so draining. But inevitably, on anniversaries and her birthday, they are by far the hardest days, by far.”
The McCanns say they take heart from the “real progress” that has been made by the Metropolitan Police probe in the past five years. Kate says: “We’ve come a long way. There is progress and there are some very credible lines of enquiry that the police are working on.
“We have to go with the process and follow it through – whatever it takes, as long as it takes. My hope for Madeleine being out there is no less than 10 years ago. In some ways it feels like it was only a few weeks ago, in other times it has felt really long, but it’s a hard marker of time.”
Gerry says: “No parent is going to give up on their child, unless they know for certain their child is dead, and we just don’t have any evidence.
“There is still an active investigation and there is still hope.”
Kate was asked about how she would react if reunited with Madeleine.
She says: “I try not to go there too often to be honest, it’s one of those real bitter-sweet kind of thoughts...
“It would be, well, it would be beyond words really.”