Scout's dad to search on

ELK RIDGE — For a man who makes a living out of finishing things, trying to walk away from a place that represents everything incomplete seems impossible.

Though 11 exhausting and frustrating days have passed since the disappearance of his 12-year-old son, Kevin Bardsley actually finds comfort in taking action to find Garrett, as he vows, if need be, to keep searching the forest floor until snow thwarts his efforts.

"Every day you come home and you think, 'where is he?, where is he?' " Bardsley said. "It's like finding a needle in a haystack. This place is so rugged and so big, all we can do is keep searching and praying and asking for help."

Unanswerable questions like what happened to Garrett, and where his body is are chilling phrases that reverberate around a plague of possible "what ifs?" But Bardsley said he refuses to be held down by the taunting unknown.

"You can continually say, 'what if, what if, what if,' but God's plan for Garrett is God's plan, and I can't question that," Bardsley said. "And that's what I've resolved myself to, that if it was his (God's) will then I would have found Garrett right away and he would have been fine . . . Instead of what-iffing, and spending my energy what-iffing, I spend my energy doing what I can to help me search for Garrett."

Bardsley, a professional contract worker who specializes in finishing closets, shelves and baseboards, has committed himself to doing what he can to make right what went so terribly wrong on a seemingly harmless camping trip 11 days ago. As Bardsley watched his son walk the short distance, approximately 150 yards, back toward camp to change his shoes, he asked Garrett if he was sure he knew where he was going. And "Yes, dad, I'm sure," was his son's reply.

Since then, the woods Bardsley once walked in with his son are now haunted with the footprints and sounds of a desperate search, which continues though efforts have recently been scaled down. The original hope that Garrett might still be alive pushed Bardsley to frantic physical exertion as he scoured the area.

"I would work myself to exhaustion because I couldn't close my eyes at night because I couldn't imagine where my son was and what he was doing," Bardsley said. "How can you sleep? How can you lay in a warm bed when he's out there probably cold, probably freezing?"