a girl

*This post was altered out of respect for a friend.

There was a girl who went missing from a community that neighbours my mom's, way back in the 1970s. Whenever I'd go there in summertime, as a kid, I'd see this picture of a beautiful teenager who I assumed had an enormous extended family. Everyone had her photo in their home. It never seemed odd that everyone knew her, but one day it did strike me as strange that I had never met her. She had that vibe of a teenager who'd be your favourite babysitter, hands down. When I was about nine or ten I finally asked after her.

My mom told me the girl's name.  "She went missing when she was only twelve, almost thirteen. She  just never came home."
I was utterly haunted by the thought of this vibrant glowing girl, out there somewhere, never having returned to her mom. I didn't ask anything more, it seemed too awful.

In 199#, without having to ask, I learned a little more about her. My mom asked me whether I remembered her- I did, though she was vividly present in my head as someone who would never be known to me. The news was that they had found her. Her bones had been identified, stumbled upon by forestry workers up on a Mountain, not far from her home.

There were whispers of a serial killer whose name I had heard. A man who was already, mercifully, in jail. In one day this mystery of seventeen years became the story of a girl who was snatched up and killed by a man who was somehow missing that piece of us that makes us human. That wisp of awareness that helps us to feel that we are all one creature working toward the same thing, no matter how seldom we get along.

Last year, at the age of thirty, I found that very girl was frequently in my thoughts. A quick and rare venture into math made me realize she would have been thirty the day her family had solid news of her in 199#. Had she lived, she would be her version of a thirty year old. Nobody would ever know what that might have been. I felt pissed off and that usually makes me anxious to take action. I rang my ma and asked after her again. My mom had a smattering of small facts, some thirdhand, fourthhand ponderings about her life and abrupt death. I wondered whether I could earn permission from her mom to write of her, having penned a few plays up till now. After we hung up, my mom tracked down the girl's mom. She spoke with my mom and they realized they were second cousins, sharing a great auntie. After a short catch-up session, the woman gave me permission to write of her daughter, via my mother.

Serendipity. Blood memory. The Creator calling the creative to work on what matters... Whatever it was, it had arrived. As of two days ago, the play has been born. A first draft will be read this Monday the 26th.

This entry, the outing of this blog, and primarily the development of this play is my way of celebrating a girl and the community that has treasured her memory. I will continue to write of the process and the play will become a full story, both factual and fictionalized. This is not merely a girl who went missing. She was a girl who loved to babysit. She had an astounding smile, a remarkable laugh and she had been given a brand new bike for her birthday, which was only thirteen days away when she left us.

She was failed by a system, untraceable for seventeen years- how can that be? Her murderer will likely never be charged with her death. He may be serving multiple life sentences now, anyway. I think that's supposed to be enough somehow. I remind myself not to give any energy to him, as he has already taken enough. I wish to avert her connection to him by informing myself and the listening world about the girl she was in life.

This girl grew up to be a radiant twelve year old girl in the Nicola Valley in British Columbia, Canada. Her mom was a [career title] and her sister still lives nearby with her [#] children. They like to go fishing and someday they will attend a play about their Auntie*.

[The play was booked to play in the area, but the family decided they would prefer not to have it do so. Myself, the creative team, Native Earth and my cousin Sharon (who paid to bring us out) altered out plans in order to serve the wishes of the girl's mom. We adhere to the belief that this is the right thing to do. Speak out. Be brave. Report anything you know. Please.]