ALERT: Another view on value

Regarding Ms. Anne Sedgwick’s letter complaining about the Amber Alert she and her husband received: I, too, was awakened by the robocall alert, and like her, was unable to get back to sleep. But unlike her, I couldn’t sleep because I thought of a very worried family going through hell wondering where their son could be and if he was OK.

I thought again, as I do every day and night of my life, of our son and his three young companions who went missing in a small plane in Montana two summers ago. I thought of the three agonizing days of searching, waiting and praying that four families went through. I thought of our feelings of total helplessness, and the unbearable heartbreak when the plane was finally found, and the rescue mission instead became a recovery mission. I never want another family to experience those same feelings, and would gladly be awakened anytime day or night if it meant that, even by the slimmest chance, a child would be found safe and sound.

Imagine, three hours of lost sleep. It is incomparable to the lifetime of lost sleep any parent who has lost a child will experience.

DONNA J. WILLIAMS

Coeur d’Alene