My son is gone. My son.

I stand in a home built by his hands, his strength, looking out onto an ocean of tears. The sky is blue, so very blue, but my heart is black. My soul is tarnished. My son, my baby boy.

We still don't know what happened. One minute I was in the kitchen, wrestling with the automated kitchen unit, and the next I was upstairs, watching as John's harried face gave everyone the news.

"I can't find him. He's gone."

"What do you mean he's gone?" I asked.

For the first time in my memory, my grandson had no answer. From he was no age, that child had been explaining the reasons why the birds flew, why the leaves fell from the trees and grew back again, where my husband had gone once he had died.

"He's in the ground, Gramma, but he's also in the sky. Like Momma."

Now he had no words for me, no explanation.

"His transponder isn't transmitting any more. He's disappeared. He's just…gone."

Scott had turned to me with a reassuring smile and grasped my arm.

"Don't worry, Grandma. We'll find him."

There was comfort in those eyes, those eyes that were identical to my son's. There was comfort in those words; it was exactly what my son would have said. And yet, when Scott turned away there was a glass-cut agony there that he did not want me to see. Yet I had seen it. It cut into my heart.

So there was talk of last known positions and grid references and Scott was gone, sweeping across the ocean in his Thunderbird. The rest remained on standby for any emergencies, but their souls had gone with their brother.

I know I should have stayed there. I should have sat with them and waited for news, tried to bring them comfort. Isn't that what grandmothers are supposed to do?

But what does a mother do when her son has disappeared?

I retreated to my room and stood for an eternity, looking at the things my son had done for me. Everything, from the sheets on the bed to the pictures on the walls, was there because of him. His hard work, his determination, his ability to simply continue even in the face of adversity. He lost his father. He lost his wife. But he never lost his spirit.

Without thinking, I turned to the picture above my bed. It was our first ever family portrait. There was Jeff, pudgy and red and round and beautiful, with a tuft of dark hair sticking out in all directions. That day he hadn't wanted to have his picture taken. He had just wanted to play. But then his daddy came out, resplendent in his firefighter's dress uniform, and my son's attention was fixed. His eyes were round. His mouth was too. Even in the picture, he's staring up at his father with such awe in his eyes. Grant is staring down at him, too. My husband adored that boy from the moment he came from me.

"My boy, my son," was all Grant had uttered when he saw Jeff for the first time. "My son."

We had lost two babies within two years and for the longest time I felt defective, unworthy. How could I not allow my hero husband to carry on his line? Grant had looked at me with a heady mix of fury and despair.

"You aren't defective," he had said as he took me in his broad arms. "You are perfect."

When Jeff came along, he completed us. My life was perfect. Or at least, I thought it was. When my son, a young adult who was carving out a life for himself in the air force and the World Space Organisation, brought Lucy home for the first time, I knew there was room in my heart for more. A lot more.

"Welcome to the family," I had said.

Jeff had scowled at me then, gesticulating for me to hush behind Lucy's back. But that girl simply nodded and blushed a little.

"Thank you, Mrs Tracy," she had said, brushing her long hair from her eyes.

"None of that now," I said. "Only lawyers and bank tellers call me that."

She never called me Mrs Tracy again.

So my heart became a little bigger, then bigger and bigger again as their little family grew.

"I don't know how you do it," I had said as I helped her out of the electrocar, on her way to deliver her fifth child.

She didn't say anything, but her eyes gave the most beautiful response. In those glossy depths, I saw pride, joy, success, and an overwhelming sheen of love.

Then it was all ripped apart.

In one fell swoop, we lost Grant and Lucy, and nearly the kids as well. I cannot describe to you the fear that I felt when I awoke and realised what had happened: avalanche. The world was white. The snow had taken everything away. Our chalet was scattered across the mountainside. I couldn't see anyone.

"Grant?" I had called. Nothing. "Grant!"

Still nothing.

"Gramma! Gramma, help!"

My fears dissolved as I heard that tiny little voice, terrified, alone.

"Gordon? I'm coming! Hold on!"

And so I pounded through the snow, ignoring the pain in my back and my heart, and fished that poor little boy from a mound of snow. His shivers were like earthquake tremors and I held him to me as if letting him go would mean losing him.

"Gramma, what happened? Where's Momma? Where's Dad? Where's Grandpa?"

With each name, his voice rose to a squeak and tears froze on his cheeks.

"I don't know, but we'll find them," I said.

Thankfully the rescue teams had arrived and had taken Gordon away by the time the others were pulled out – both those who were living and those who were dead. Scott and John had been found in prone positions over something – that something was Alan. The boys had taken blows from falling debris for their younger sibling and were bruised, battered, but alive. They were all ushered off with their parents' names on their lips.

Then Jeff had been dragged out. Then Lucy. Her body was limp and when her head slumped to the side, I saw that her eyes were dull. It was over.

When they pulled that cover up over Lucy's chalky face, my son had dissolved, falling on his knees in the snow and calling down all kinds of destruction on the world. He was bundled up in an emergency blanket and manhandled away. I stayed behind. We weren't done yet.

The last ones unaccounted for were Grant and Virgil.

When my husband's body was eventually pulled out, he was still clutching his grandson. They said he died from a blow to the head. They said he must have shielded Virgil from the impact.

They said he was a hero.

I knew that. But what good is a hero when he is dead?

"No. No! NO! Don't leave me!"

The rest is a blur. The moment I saw that Grant was dead was the moment a dagger was shoved into my heart. All I remember of his funeral is being crushed under the weight of despair, and seeing the proud colour guard of firefighters, those that Grant had trained with and those that he had trained, their faces stoic and their backs ramrod straight.

I threw the first rose on his casket – an eco-friendly model, just like he would have wanted – and fell to my knees. I simply could not. Hundreds of hands were on my shoulders, people were murmuring words of comfort, but one hoarse voice rose above them all. Johnny laid his hand on my forearm and looked at me with those too-old eyes.

"He's in the ground, Gramma, but he's also in the sky. Like Momma."

And he hugged me then, and that gave me the strength to get through the day.

The only reason I am still alive is the love I bear for my son and my grandsons. Grant was my world, my everything. When he died, so much of me died too. And yet, another part of me blossomed. It was as if my husband was watching me from the stars, sending me the strength I needed, imparting to me the knowledge I needed to stitch our shattered family back together. His compass had still been in his pocket when they found the body. That same compass that kept him on track now kept me on the right path.

So I moved in to help care of my son and my grandsons, and slowly, so slowly, we healed.

But now my stitches are coming apart. The seams of our family are ripping again.

Scott returned with nothing. John scoured the airwaves for hours. Nothing. Brains ran endless calculations to find his location. Nothing. Virgil and Gordon and Kayo and Alan went out to search the depths of the sea. Nothing. Nothing.

Nothing.

I look out over the ocean from my room in a home made by my son, a home that is the culmination of his life's work. His disappearance has twisted that dagger in my heart a little more, pushed it just a little deeper.

The sky is blue but my heart is black.

My son is gone.

My son.