Where is Emma Fillipoff (Nine)

 

 

Previous Segments of Where is Emma Fillipoff
ONE: The Grieving Mothers of Perth, Ontario
TWO: She's Missing
THREE: Wednesday, November 28, 2012
FOUR: Mental illness runs in the family
FIVE: A Mother's Instinct
SIX: Okay. So I'm dead.
SEVEN: She ran away because she fucking hates her parents.
EIGHT: Safe Until She Returns

A Perfect, Beautiful Family

 

After I did the interview with Shelley, my mom told me a story about when we first moved to Perth.

“I don’t know if I ever told you this, but one of the first times we ever went to the Perth Pool, the Fillipoffs were there. Shelley and James were playing with the two girls and one of the boys. The kids were around four, six and eight. All five of them were taking turns throwing one of those rubber balls. All together. I remember thinking, what a perfect, beautiful family. I guess that’s what everyone wants. A perfect, beautiful family."

For Shelley, family was everything. When she had her first child, her whole life changed. If she hadn’t become a mother, Shelley claims, “I’d be dead now. I would have been an alcoholic, a drug addict. I’d be dead.”

Shelley loved teaching, but at the end of her long days, she couldn’t wait to come home and spend time with her kids. “I could have had ten,” she says. “It was like a drug to me.”

Now, without Emma, her family is not complete. “There are days I could shoot myself… My mind is not what it used to be… I struggle to stay afloat.” Even the most minor tasks seem monumental. The trauma of Emma’s disappearance has left Shelley with PTSD and a mild form of dyslexia. Since James left, she has battled a major depressive disorder and anorexia. She takes medication to manage the depression, and help her sleep. But because her depression is situational, pills can only do so much.

I asked her to what extent she thought that knowing where Emma was would change her state of mind. Certainly, finding emma is the one thing she has been hoping for. The initial relief, the joy would be immense. That said, her psychiatrist told her that she would never go back to being the same person again.

“I didn’t go back to being the same person after James," she says. "I'm different... I'm not sure how different. Less confident. Less comfortable with myself. Way less happy.  Way more doomsday. Like something bad is going to happen.”

Sometimes you hear of people losing their legs or getting a terrible illness and they stop worrying that other bad things will happen to them. Because the bad thing has already happened.

Shelley assures me that this is not her case. She worries constantly about her other kids.

“You hear of families where one thing goes wrong and everything else falls apart.”

Though losing Emma, surely this is far worse than just one thing going wrong.                 

Shelley: “What happened to Emma is something I never could have imagined would happen… I used to imagine it when they were little… Like what if they pull away from my hand and disappear?"

Erica: “And that’s kind of what you feel is what happened.”

Shelley: “Exactly, it’s kind of like I let go of her hand.”

Erica: “Or she let go of yours.”

Shelley: “I’m not sure I could have protected her. I’m not sure she would have listened or sought help… But I’m sure I’ll always regret not going. I should have just gone that Saturday. I was all packed. I had my suitcase. I should have just gone, Erica. I should have just gone.”

The End.
-Written by Erica J. Schmidt.

An immense thank you to Shelley Fillipoff for her candour and generosity .

Thank you to my mom, dad and all my family. Thank you to my sister and friends who helped with the interview before it was published.

To learn more, please follow the links below. The Fillipoff family is still offering a $25,000 reward for any information that leads to Emma's whereabouts. If you know something or someone you think could help, please contact Shelley, Erica or the Fifth Estate. OR CALL THE POLICE.

Thank you to the Fifth Estate. Their documentary Finding Emma and its related site contain an enormous amount of crucial information.

Thank you to everyone who has written about Emma's case, in addition to everyone who has shared photos and articles. Raising awareness is probably the best way of keeping hope alive. As the Fifth Estate points out, there are far too many Emmas out there. If you have a loved one who has gone missing, you are welcome to share your story in the comments below, or with the Fifth Estate.

Much love to Shelley and the Fillipoff family, to Emma's friends and loved ones, to all who have gone missing, and to all who keep looking. And to Emma.
 

Where is Emma Fillipoff
ONE: The Grieving Mothers of Perth, Ontario
TWO: She's Missing
THREE: Wednesday, November 28, 2012
FOUR: Mental illness runs in the family
FIVE: A Mother's Instinct
SIX: Okay. So I'm dead.
SEVEN: She ran away because she fucking hates her parents.
EIGHT: Safe Until She Returns


HAVE YOU SEEN EMMA?
Please Share Your Stories and Tips
Help Find Emma Fillipoff Facebook Group
Email Erica: ericaschmidt85(at)gmail(dot)com
(contact form below)
Email Shelley: fillipoff(at)hotmail(dot)com
Call the police.

Finding Emma on the Fifth Estate

Exuberant Bodhisattva on Facebook
Erica on Twitter: @mypelvicfloor

            



Sacred Fire

Vile shrieks emerged from the kitchen. Incomprehensible animal sounds of deep guttural rage.  Everyone seated in my grandmother’s sun room tensed up.  What was that noise?

My mother and her stepfather were fighting about the Boxing Day salmon.  Apparently Howard had taken it out of the oven and messed with the tin foil as he was inspecting its readiness.  In the process, he had destroyed the salmon’s meticulous aesthetic presentation, which had caused my mother exceeding distress.

In the sun room we were playing a game called “Questions,” a conversation starter for dinner parties and other awkward situations.  My Grandma had just read the question, “Would you rather be remembered for your accomplishments or for your character?”

The explosive bellows from the kitchen died down and my mother came to join us in the sun room, a little red in the face and tight in the shoulders.  She huffed and puffed ever so slightly.

 “What’s the question?” she asked.

 My grandmother repeated it.

 Being remembered for character is not always a good thing,” she said.   

 “I agree,” said Robbie, my boyfriend at the time.  I used to call him the Boatman because I met him on a boat. “I would like to be remembered by my accomplishments."  His statement caused some scandal in the sun room.  How shallow and superficial, some of the company was thinking.  But the Boatman already has excellent character and so it is natural that he would wish to aspire to something else.

“Well,” said my grandma.  “I can see that.  I hardly got anything done in my life.  In my next life, I’d like to accomplish more,”   Of course this led to great objection in the sun room.  And tears.  First my sister started, then my grandmother and my mother joined in.  Tears on this side of the family are contagious.   All this emotion inspired my mother to tell us all about her recent singing lessons.

“So I went to see this woman and she gave me all these scales and breathing lessons.  She said I didn’t breathe right so I did her exercises every day. I worked really hard.  Then one week, my soloist at the church had to go away so I didn’t have anyone to do the introit.  So I brought the introit to the singing lesson.  It was only a few bars long.  I’d practiced it a bit before, breathing deeply of course.  And at the lesson, I sang it for my teacher who didn’t smile once through the whole thing.  When I was done, she just sat there.  Finally she said, ‘Well, maybe in a couple of years, you’d be ready to perform it.’”

Now my mother was crying and soon the other women in the family would join in.  No one in the Boatman’s family cries at family dinner and so this is always an interesting experience for him.  My mother wasn’t finished her story.  She continued on a mile-a-minute.

“I just felt so humiliated.  I mean, what a thing for a teacher to say to a student.  For a four-bar introit at a church service in Perth Ontario! And she was charging like 75 bucks a lesson!”

My mother went on to say that she never went back to the teacher.  But the story still wasn’t over.  The next day one of her 12-year-old piano students came to her.   The elementary school talent show was the following day and she wanted to accompany herself singing “Knock, knock knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” by Bob Dylan.  

She went through the song once and it was horrendous.  My mother almost told her it was a lost cause, but then she remembered her traumatizing singing teacher and was determined to coach her student through the song.  She spent a whole hour labouring through the song with her student until she finally sounded good enough for the Stewart School Talent Show. By the end of the story, my mother was in tears again.

“You know, if you’ve got a song, you’ve gotta sing it.”

Now the salmon was ready and my mother returned to the kitchen.  More guttural animal rage and screaming.  This time, Howard was insisting on serving the salmon that had bones in it. The fury was astounding.  After serving everyone’s plate, my mother sat down at the table.  This time, she fumed and huffed and puffed, visibly and audibly.

At the end of the supper, my grandmother and sister had planned something delightful that was guaranteed to raise everyone’s spirits.  Bananas Flambé.

Banana’s flambé, or fried bananas is the stuff of legends in our family.  When my sister Taes was three years old, she went to visit my grandmother in her house in New Jersey.  One day, Grandma told Taes that they were going to a very special restaurant where they could have a very special dessert called Fried Bananas.  So three year old Taes was tremendously excited.  She rushed through her dinner in anxious anticipation of the upcoming dessert. The waitress came with the dessert menu and Taes placed her order.  But alas, the waitress returned with very bad news.  The bananas weren’t ripe enough.  Taes screamed and wailed and made a huge scene, somewhat comparable to the salmon rage.  Rather embarrassed, my grandmother dragged her out of the restaurant.  The next day, Taes called Grandma into the living room where she was watching Sesame Street.  As fate would have it, Big Bird was making Fried Bananas.  My grandmother wrote the recipe down, and our family has been enjoying the delicacy ever since. So on this tense and brawling Boxing Day evening, the whole family gathered around the stove to watch the process.  Taes poured the vodka onto the simmering bananas. 

“I think maybe you need a little more,” said Grandma.   So Taes poured a little more. “Okay, here it goes, said Grandma.  And she threw in the match.  Flames burst up from the frying pan up to the ceiling.  Grandma and Taes froze, eyes widened.

 “Oh wow,” I said.

 “Oh my God,” said my mother.

 “Throw a towel on it, Mary,” called Howard.  “Mary! Put a towel on it!” 

 “Put a lid on that please,” said the Boatman. 

 Nick, my brother-in-law caught the whole thing on camera.  (The movie is entirely delightful; however, for some reason youtube has banned it due to copyright issues. Something about the word flambé, or bananas. We're not sure...)

Probably it took us about forty seconds to find the lid.  In the end, combined with vanilla ice cream, the Bananas Flambé was one of the most delicious things I’ve ever tasted. 

The End.

Happier Salmon Days
Sister in Salmon on Salmon with Salmon

Exuberant Bodhisattva on Facebook
Twitter: @mypelvicfloor
I Let Go, self-help book by Erica J. Schmidt

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