Yesterday when I was looking for news on the case, I found this article talking about Cummings participating in the search efforts on Sunday.

When I read it, one sentence just jumped off the computer at me, and I couldn’t shake it all day.

Read moreCummings says:

“If I get on a horse, I can clear my head and feel as if I’m really out there searching for my daughter. ”

This just blew me away.

The words “as if” and “really” are notably strange here. They are what I have coined hedge words. Look at the this British Councils explanation for the “as if” word usage. The website gives three examples of the words being used. It says, “We can also use as if and as though with a past verb tense to suggest that something is unreal.”

The website then gives examples for this usage:

			She behaves as if/though she were the Queen. (She obviously isn’t the Queen)
			He walks as if/though he were an old man. (But in fact he’s a young man)
			They talk as if/though the world were coming to an end. (Of course it’s not)

That is precisely how this statement hits me.

People who wanted to search for their daughter wouldn’t want to feel “as if” they were “really” out there searching. They would want to “search”. Period.

I personally believe our brain leaks out clues to our real state of mind with words like this. I don’t think Cummings knew he said that, this way.

The article continues:

“In a break between rides into the woods, Miller said the benefit of including Ronald Cummings in the search was weighed against concern about what he might find.

But it turned out okay.

‘He literally looks like a different person,’ Miller said. ‘I think this has done him a lot of good.’”

I was amazed, too, that after the search that Cummings “looked” like a totally different person. Sure, one could argue that he was relieved he didn’t find his daughter dead, but why wasn’t he is still worried about her, and feeling deeply troubled and unresolved that there are no clues, that perhaps they aren’t looking in the right places, that perhaps she could be holed up in a room somewhere? Could it have been that Cummings saw how the search works, and what they do to look for bodies, and now he feels a whole lot better because of that? It’s chilling to think about, nonetheless write.

There are days just reading the news can be painful. Things jump out at me like knives–stabbing at me.