A trio of losses. 3 : 1982 into 2009.

He was driving in the Paris to Dakar rally when he disappeared into thin air. Somewhere near the border between Mali and Algeria his tyre tracks evaporated and for six days he was absolutely nowhere. The media reported his mother to be 'extremely distressed' and my brother and I joined the significant majority in lapping it up and laughing like drains.

I was ten and my brother was two months removed from turning eight - and like so many people in Thatcher's Britain in 1982, all we could see was the comedic value in this story. Maggie's son couldn't even follow a map. Maggie's son was as stupid and useless as Maggie was. Maggie's son was probably dead and it served Maggie right because Maggie was horrible - because everything that was wrong with Britain was Maggie's fault at this time in the early eighties. Now she was being punished for her sins, being force-fed her just desserts and it seemed appropriate. It was perfect; the bloodthirsty and vengeful example of karma that the climate both inspired and demanded back in 1982.

My mother endured our tasteless jibes and bad jokes for two days before she lost her patience and then her temper. She called us in to the lounge room, sat us down on our velvet sofa and gave us a resounding telling off. Whatever our opinions were about Maggie as Prime Minister, we were just acting like nasty little boys who were obviously too young and immature to see the truth, she said. The truth, she went on to explain, was that Maggie was not the Prime Minister in this particular scenario. Her job was irrelevant and all that mattered, all we needed to remember was that Maggie was a human being; just a mum who loved her son and was worried sick about him right now. It was no different to the pain and worry she would feel if one of us were lost in the desert, our mother concluded.

I was still a well behaved and studious boy at this time in my life. It mattered not that that I felt my mother had overreacted and was being unfair in curtailing our fun - she was still my mother and her words still carried weight back in 1982. I listened to her, did what I was told and I apologised, promised to behave better in the future before scuttling away shamefacedly. I accepted her viewpoint but what I failed to do back then in 1982 was understand her viewpoint. That understanding did not arrive for some time - specifically some twenty seven years later, one summer evening in 2009.

Twenty seven years later and Thatcher's Britain is long gone, replaced for me by a life in Rudd's Australia. I am older, taller and wiser these days; finally settled, calm and content after years of confusion and upheaval. I have finally found my place in this world - yet this day is the exception to the rule. Today I feel displaced, panicked - for today I am late picking him up from his cricket practice and I arrive to find the oval empty. Today I arrive and there is no sign of my stepson or his team and I realise that if he is not here, I have absolutely no idea where is is. Today I have lost him - cannot find him anywhere - and I am long passed worried now, making serious progress towards frantic now.

I cannot stop thinking about Mark Thatcher. About Margaret Thatcher and my mother's words from 1982. I think about my wife; about how much she loves that boy, how much I have come to love that boy and how impossible it would be if his were the tracks that suddenly evaporated, if we were forced to cope with his disappearance from our lives. I try to calm myself and listen to my rational inner voice which tells me that I am being stupid, alarmist. It tells me that I will either find him or that he will turn up safely with a perfectly reasonable explanation for his disappearance. One of his team mate's parents will will have picked him up, dropped him home by the time I get back - or he will be on his way to that friend's house, call us from there and ask us to pick him up. There will be a simple explanation, a valid reason. Definitely, absolutely. Without question.

I keep telling myself that - yet the more kilometres I cover as I chase hope from oval to oval and house to house, the more I struggle to stay composed and rational. I go home, check with my wife to see if he has returned yet, find out if he has called yet. He has not called, not returned and I get back in my car, retrace my steps and revisit locations. I look again, look harder - but all I can see is a picture of Mark Thatcher and all I can hear are my mother's words from 1982. It has taken twenty seven years for understanding to reach me but it does so at that moment and I am finally old enough, mature enough to see the truth which escaped me in 1982. Twenty seven years on and that understanding finally hits home with force.

I am wrung out, worn out and fresh out of ideas by the time I finish my third circuit of all known haunts. All I can think to do is check back home one more time - and my heart skips a beat and jumps into my throat as I turn down our street to see his father's car parked outside our house. It is then I see my stepson, leaning on our fence and waving at me nonchalantly as I pull up. He is maddeningly oblivious, inappropriately carefree and I have the strongest urge to tell him off for something, for anything. Instead I find myself striding towards him, embracing him, holding him for the longest time. He apologises for worrying me and I hear it in his tone as he speaks - he does not get why I am making such a fuss. I know instinctively that he is confused by my reaction, that he can accept I was worried but unable to understand why I was this worried.

I allow myself a smile as I close my eyes, drag a few more seconds from our embrace. He may not understand now, but I am sure that it will come to him in time. It may take a year, it may take twenty seven, but something tells me it will reach him eventually.