Cleaning the cupboards the other day and I found the empty jewellery box with a card inside from my sister.  The note reads “Because you’re so strong”.  And that is pretty well how I felt until that August afternoon when I was searching farmers fields and river bank for Michael’s backpack that he had tossed. 

Around noon that day, my husband called and said that Michael still wasn’t up, so he went to check on him and found him missing.  About the same time, I got a call from one of the local police officers saying that Michaeal had been into the station for a chat and left.  “Left?  You let him go?”  Officers were on the lookout for him.  Mid-afternoon, the phone call came:  “We found your son, he’s being checked by ambulance attendants.”  That was a 40 km walk that day in scorching heat.  He was dehydrated, burnt to a crisp and slightly disorientated.  When I picked him up, he told me that he had taken his wagon to carry his belongings  – all his socks and underwear – school books - playstation – cds and dvds and school bag and probably more that I will discover in time.  In the next town, he upgraded the wagon to a shopping buggy which was later dumped on a sideroad.  Too heavy and kept getting stuck in the gravel shoulder.  But we had the smarts to take the school bag with the playstation.  Dumped that too, or tossed it, who knows.

So we spent time looking for it.  Guess when I was climbing the fence my necklace with the solid red heart came undone and the heart went missing and my strength disappearred.  Everytime I needed that extra bit of strength, I would clutch the heart and it was like my mom and my sister were there supporting me.  And how I’ve needed it every since that day.

OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) and impulsivity go hand in hand with the TSC complex.  This is only one instance in many of Michael’s great escapes.  They usually occur when he has it in his mind that he wants to see someone or go somewhere.  He will obsess all week about someone and by weeks end, he’s off and running…