We live in a world that is so big that people can get lost in it. My wife was reading a story to me about an American pilot shot down over France during the second world war. Neither the U.S. Government nor his family knew what had become of him until long after that war and two more had ended. His Mustang fighter plane was shot down by German artillery near a little French village where local residence got to him first and saved his life. He became part of British military group until the Germans captured them and executed them in a nearby forest. He was with them, died with them and was buried with them in the local cemetery. The information of his death never left the village until a news reporter heard a legend of an American who was shot down in France and decided to investigate the story by going there in person. Every country has one or many unknown soldiers and every country has a list of names of their soldiers that they have no record of where they died and where they might be buried. We live in a world so big that people can get lost.
I remember during the Great Depression in the 1920’s and 1930’s. There were families who had a father or an older son leave home to try to find work to buy food for the family and were never seen again. The world is so big! They may have tried to write but didn’t have money for a 3 cent stamp. They may have tried to call but didn’t have a nickel for the pay phone. They may be desperate for help but didn’t have a way or means to ask for it. We live in a world that is so big!
There are families who have had a disagreement, an argument and one may have, in a fit of anger, left the house and has never been seen again. ”Why doesn’t he write or call or just come home? He knows we love him and want him home” It’s such a big world that people can get lost in it.
In today’s ‘Big World’ it is a little harder to get lost because there are so many records, so many cameras, so many electronic tracking devices, so much forensics that make it almost impossible to get lost even if you are trying to avoid being found. I do research on my family, the family that have long past. Just a few years ago it was much harder to find records of those who lived before us. Now! It is getting easier almost on a daily basis. The records from all over the world can be translated into English or whatever language you may speak. The records are being photographed and digitized so that they can be brought up on simplest electronic devises. It is still a ‘Great Big World’ but the world’s people, those with ‘great big minds’, are shrinking it so that we can look down upon it and find our families, living or dead. It is a good time to live.