Adam

Little Adam Walsh.  One of my earliest memories is about him.  It's fuzzy, but it's there.  I'm in a department store with my sister.  We are wearing wind-breaker jackets that make swishy noises when we move around.  We are little, can't see over the circular racks of clothing in the store and so my perspective is from a very low vantage-- we are obviously tiny, young.  Most vivid part of this memory is a sense of tension.  I hold onto my sister's sleeve protectively.  She is smaller than me and likes to joke around more and I'm afraid if one of us is going to get kidnapped, it's going to be her for sure.  She would guiltlessly talk to any stranger, probably.  I lead her around the circular racks looking for mom.  Mom isn't calling for us but she knows I am the keeper, she knows I won't stray far.  As we make our way through the isles, I remember looking up at the shopping adults, the ones not accompanied by children, suspiciously.  I wonder- why don't they have a child?  Do they want one?  Will they try and take us?  Just like they took Adam Walsh?  

I remember making faces at people shopping alone, in the hopes that if they thought I was bratty, I wouldn't be someone they'd want to take.

I was a crazy, neurotic child.  

But this is my oldest memory.  It's from the very early 80's in Miami, where I was born.  Adam went missing in 1981 in Florida; my sister was born in 1982.  I would have to say this memory is from at least 1983.  

The details of Adam's death were too terrible for my mother to ever explain to me.  I just knew that the bad man that took this little boy did horrible things to him and that is why I should stay close to her at all times.  In the classroom, teachers showed us that if someone approached us in a car we were to run in the exact opposite direction (a trick that would come in handy 14 years later when I was studying abroad and almost got kidnapped by a bunch of drunk Italian boys).  There were all sorts of stories on the news about kids getting snatched.  There was kidnapping mania, especially in the state of Florida.  

I remember watching "I Know My Name is Steven"  for the first time and being scared witless at the prospect of getting stolen by someone who likes to make slaves out of little kids!  I didn't even like to do chores in my own house!  What would life be like if I had to pour bowls of cereal for a fat lady who won't get out of bed all day and all night!?  (That's what I thought happened to little-kid slaves).  

The Adam Walsh case was a big deal for little me.  Not just because of my parents' interest in the mystery, the tragedy, or the fact that his father became a well-known crime-busting icon.  I grew up feeling like I knew Adam, as if he were in my pre-school class.  I remember developing a palpable sympathy for him at such an early age.  Fearful wondering what his life was like in his last moments without his parents, and hope that I would never have to experience it firsthand.  Survivor's guilt for an imaginary friend.  

Little Adam would have turned 34 this year.  That makes me so sad.