My Missing Daughter

"Mummy, my ball is lost!"

Jenna cried.

They had only been playing on the beach momentarily before Jenna lost it.

Lisa, Jenna's mum scanned the beach. She saw a young couple walking the dog who had the ball in his mouth. She held Jenna's hand and explained the ball belonged to Jenna, and that she had lost it. The couple were happy to let them have it back. Jenna smiled sweetly and thanked them politely.

They walked on the beach, but Jenna became giddy. She kicked the ball too far ahead of them, let go of her mother's hand, and ran off to get it back.

Lisa asked her to return to her, but she didn't reply, and there was no sign of her daughter.

She scanned the entire beach and walked up and down the areas where they had been playing, but she could not see her.

Lisa was in shock. She could not speak, and bile arose in her stomach as she feared her daughter had been snatched.

They had only been on the beach for a few seconds before her daughter had gone missing, and Lisa could not understand how a beautiful day playing with her happy daughter could turn into a tragedy so fast.

She called the police.

"She is only four years old," Lisa told them, then described her as wearing a white hoodie, dark curly hair, and dark boots.

The police said they would look for her.

Jenna franticly sat by her phone with tears in her eyes, she could not stop asking herself questions;

"Is she dead, alive, or has she been kidnapped?"

"What if I never see her again?"

"Is this my fault?"

She nervously chewed her fingers until they started to bleed and checked her phone every second she had left.

The police called her back.

"Hi, Lisa. This is the police calling. We think that we have found your little girl. She was picked up by a beach patrol who found her crying on the beach. She said that she was looking for her ball. She lost her mummy in the crowd on the beach."

Lisa thanked them and headed to the station to pick her daughter up.

When she got her back, she vowed never to let her daughter out of her sight again.

She wasn't sure that she would have survived that one minute on the beach, where her daughter went missing. Her heart raced, and her body shook so hard that she thought that she would die of heartbreak.

Her daughter went missing within a minute of letting go of her hand, and everything had happened so fast.

She stamped her foot on the floor and burst into tears. She blamed herself for not holding her daughter's hand tight enough, but wait a minute;

Her daughter had a wrist rein attached to her while holding her hand, so how did she get away from her?

Lisa hugged her daughter and said,

"I'm so sorry, Jenna."

Jenna cried in her mum's arms. She didn't understand what had happened, and though she was safe, she was scared,

scared of losing her mum again.

Lisa vowed to change what she used to protect Jenna when she went out. She realized that not all products for children were safe, and later, she took to the newspaper to alert parents to be more cautious about the safety of their children.

In just one minute, Lisa could have lost Jenna forever, and she realized that all it took was a minute for a child to be found dead.

She vowed to change things, but she knew these dangerous products might never be changed; those sixty seconds made her realize that it was up to the adults to be responsible and speak out about the importance of ensuring that their children were safe.

Jenna realized that her child was lucky to be alive, while the next child might be found dead. The thought sickened her, but she was going to try and change how products were made for children's safety.