08/18/2025
Grief doesn’t come in gentle tides. Some days it’s a storm, and today I am drowning.
You should be 52 today.
You should be blowing out candles, laughing with me, with Starla, with your grandbabies.
You should be sharing your story of survival, standing in front of people battling addiction, telling them there’s hope.
You should be here. With me. With us.
But you aren’t.
Instead, you’ve been failed — again and again. Failed by the Mobile Police Department. Failed by the very systems built to “help.” They love to throw around the phrase “they matter to someone” like Mardi Gras beads, but their actions say otherwise. Their refusal to create a cold case unit SCREAMS otherwise. Your case report is still blank. Blank. After nearly 25 years. And that silence is as violent as the day you disappeared.
You should be 52 today.
It’s been 10 years since I learned your name. Ten years since the ground split open under me with the truth of who you are. Ten years of clawing through silence — searching, writing, arguing, questioning, praying. Ten years of being told to wait. To be patient. To “move on.”
And ten years of refusing.
Now I’ve carried you in memory longer than I ever had you in life.
Why did the stars steal you from me when I was still a child? Why did they decide they needed your light more than I did?
Here’s the truth: it breaks my heart every single day to live in a world without you. There isn’t always a bright side. Sometimes there’s only the dark. But I’ve learned to sit inside it. And I’ve loved the stars too fiercely to ever fear their night.
You should be 52 today. But you’ll be — until the day I drag the truth into the light and finally bring you home.
- Jessica
