My 11th Christmas without Madeleine
Eleven years after her daughter’s disappearance, Kate Mccann reveals how she copes with the festive season
The last Christmas I ever spent with my daughter, Madeleine, is a very vivid memory for me. She was three years old then and, at nursery, had just started to learn some Christmas carols. She also loved doing the accompaniment to Dean Martin’s Rudolph the Red-nosed
Reindeer. I can still hear her singing
it now.
For her present that year we had bought Madeleine (and her younger brother and sister) a kitchen station, which we wrapped with a bow and left for her to find when she came downstairs. I remember seeing her face when she walked in. She was beside herself. She was so excited and got straight to work preparing us all a meal. That was a lovely moment.
I have bought a Christmas present for Madeleine every year since, but that toy cooker was the last one I ever saw her open. In May 2007 she went missing from our rented family holiday apartment in Praia da Luz in Portugal and has not been seen since.
This Christmas will be the 11th my husband and I have spent without our daughter. For families like ours who have to live with the agony of a missing child – or indeed any relative – Christmas can be a hugely painful time. The festive period is a time to be together as a family and for most people is such a happy occasion. That almost expected joy makes it even more difficult for those that are suffering. You learn over time that you simply have to make the best of it and lean upon the support that is out there – wherever it comes from.
The first Christmas we had after Madeleine went missing, I couldn’t do anything. I felt so numb that I couldn’t buy presents or cards or even put up the Christmas tree. It all felt so wrong. In the end, somebody else had to do all that and we went and stayed with family elsewhere. Each year I’ve made a bit more effort and we’ve dealt with it as best we can. After all, our other two children, who are now 12 years old, deserve a Christmas as well.
That doesn’t mean it isn’t hard. Everything is tinged with pain. That absence is tangible for all our family, the emotion still palpable. It’s impossible to shake off that heaviness ever-present on your chest. But you just have to try.
Before Madeleine’s disappearance I had never heard of the charity Missing People, which The Daily Telegraph is backing in its Christmas Appeal.
My husband Gerry and I stayed
‘A candle still burns for our daughter in the village’
in Portugal for months after she had gone, continuing to search in vain. It was only when we got back that we were properly put in touch by a relative.
The work the charity does for families like ours is vital and I am proud to be an ambassador championing their work. Hundreds of thousands of people go missing every year. This is something that affects so many families and it can destroy them. The charity is there