Missing Children Reveal Subtleties of Shrouded Human Emotions Sunday, June 30, 2002   BY HOLLY MULLEN SALT LAKE TRIBUNE COLUMNIST     It cleaves your heart, the image of Greg Kofford in a wet suit and helmet, clinging to a rock in the roiling waters of Little Cottonwood Creek and searching for his little boy, Simon. The 4-year-old wandered off from a family picnic last Sunday. His body was recovered Saturday afternoon from the creek.     Against the advice of canyon search and rescue experts, members of the Kofford family had taken to combing the creek themselves late last week. In their agony, the Koffords had misgivings about Salt Lake County Sheriff's Department search efforts. They felt that once Simon was presumed dead, the work had suddenly bogged down. On the contrary, said county officials, it is the creek that calls the shots. High runoff requires extreme caution and the search is best done when the water is lowest early in the day -- even for trained professionals.     "I've got to find my son," Kofford told The Salt Lake Tribune, and he waded into the raging stream. Looking on was Simon's grandmother, Marilyn Kofford. She wondered aloud what some others have been thinking -- if this search did not deserve some of the emphasis of one going on 20 miles to the north.     "Have we done something wrong?" she asked tearfully. "[Elizabeth] Smart has been missing for more than 20 days; Simon has only been gone for four."     The answer is, no one is in the wrong. The Koffords had to get Simon back. The Smarts must have Elizabeth.     "I don't truly know what the Koffords are feeling, but it would be devastating not to know where my child's body is, and with the Smarts, to not know whether their daughter is alive or has passed on," says Terri Hartlauer, a Murray mother of five. Her two sons, Christopher, 17, and Travis, 15, were killed in a car accident in 1997.     A different story of loss; a similar crush of grief.     On the score card of humanity, one child's disappearance or death counts as much as another's. Weeks have passed since Elizabeth's abduction. Weeks are now grinding into a month. Meantime, children all across this country have been shot and beaten to death. They have overdosed on drugs, run away from abusive homes and been snatched up by noncustodial parents. Black children, white children, brown children. City kids, country kids. Rich and poor.     No one diminishes these losses. But the Smart case features certain subtleties that reveal the light and shadow in all of us.     We recognize this crime as completely possible. We thought she was safe, we realize it could happen to any of us, and it shakes us to our toenails. Elizabeth is beautiful, so accomplished, nearly perfect. Easy to love, even for a million strangers. So swarms of volunteers turn out to search. There are candlelight vigils, prayer services. Cash donations flow in. People pin baby-blue ribbons to their lapels.     It has brought out the best in us, or as author Bernard Malamud once put it, "what it means human."     Consider, though, what has brought out the darker side. The Smarts have wealth and a modicum of community influence. Both are relative. After all, they are not the Huntsmans or the Hinckleys. But neither are they scratching out a living and sleeping in a two-bedroom apartment. The continuous video loop of the Smarts' expansive home tucked against the Salt Lake foothills or of Elizabeth, wrapped in velvet and taffeta and plucking the strings of her harp, rakes up powerful emotions -- "search envy" not the least of them.     No question, one case is garnering more attention than others. We can be angry about that. Or we can recognize it, accept it and move on toward solving each of them, one at a time.     _________         Holly Mullen welcomes e-mail at hmullen@sltrib.com             © Copyright 2002, The Salt Lake Tribune All material found on Utah OnLine is copyrighted The Salt Lake Tribune and associated news services. No material may be reproduced or reused without explicit permission from The Salt Lake Tribune.