Two years ago I wrote about the day we realized Austin was missing. It was actually the day after his last known whereabouts, but we didn't know that for a few more months. I've already forgotten many of these details, and even what some of it felt like. Remembering is painful, but remembering is good. And since writing this I've come to understand how much sharing can help. Both myself, and others who may need hope. Thanks for taking this journey with us, all five years of it.
Day 1
I often
don’t remember details well. I remember
emotions, and I remember the overall feel of things, but not all the
details. But this day is different; this
is a day I remember the details of.
I went to
work and had a normal day, nothing special.
I was wishing I was at the beach with my Mom and Drew, but was so glad
he was spending time with family and knew he was loving it. I missed him terribly, it was after all his
first time away from us, but I was relaxed, knowing he was safe and I had a quiet
house to head to. But then my cell phone
sounded with the ring tone of an unknown number. I usually don’t answer calls from numbers I don't know.
But something prompted me to pick it up- maybe it was the ease of the
day, or maybe God prompted
me.
 |
| Later learned it was June 26 |
It was a
voice I had heard once before, a voice to a face I had never seen. But her voice, that call, would change
everything. It was Austin’s friend and
co-worker (and more I would later learn), Kelly. She was panicked sounding and said that
Austin hadn’t shown up for work that day, and wouldn’t answer her calls. She told me he had called in the day before
and she hadn’t been able to get in touch with him since. She said it was unlike him. She said he had never just not shown up for
work. This was after all, a job he
loved. She said that I needed to call
the police. I told her I’d think about
it, and would probably call. I wasn’t
sure I would, but wanted to calm her.
I took it
all in, with my mind quickly making up reasons why there was no cause for
concern. Sure I hadn’t seen him the
night before or that morning, but he was an adult, I didn’t check in on him. There was one moment of panic, that maybe he
was in his room and was “gone”, the image of him with a gun flashing through my
mind. Michael was home, so I called him
immediately. I didn’t want him
unprepared for what he may find, even as strong as he is. So, I let him know about the call, and asked
him to please check in the room. I
stayed on the phone, not breathing, but still driving down I-10 until he said
“he’s not in there.” But he also said
that Austin’s computer was there. Austin
didn’t go many places without that. His
things all seemed to be there, no clothes missing, all 25 pairs of shoes in
place (possibly an exaggeration, but he did love shoes).
I called my
mom, while still driving down I-10 and heading home, sure that I could piece
the puzzle together and all would be fine.
I just needed to get home. The
closer I got, the faster I drove. When
my mom picked up, I quickly told her about the phone call. It was another moment where I thought that it
would become less real instead of more, after all, Mom solves everything. Even when she doesn’t solve it, she brings
rationale and helps you solve it. I wish
Mom could have solved this. She stayed
calm and asked questions, wanting to know all that Kelly told me, all that
anyone knew. There is a somewhat
unfounded- okay, completely founded up until that time- thought in our family
that I can’t handle difficult things.
It’s not that I can’t so much, as I just don’t. I’ve always lived by a thought that if you ignore
the issue, it may just go away. Tasks
and jobs I handle great, just once the decision of how to handle the issue is
out of the way. This is one of many
things that has changed since Day 1.
Mom and I
discussed calling the police. I had a
strong belief that if I called and reported Austin missing, that he would come
home in the middle of it, or shortly after, and be mad about it. He would be mad that I thought he wasn’t
responsible enough to handle himself, mad that we had looked through his
things, mad that I had talked with Kelly.
Or laugh. He laughed a lot. I also had the completely untrue belief that
most of the country has, that you need to wait 48 hours before law enforcement
will take a missing persons report. I
have one other memory from years past, of a missing persons report
trying to be filed on a loved one. I recall police saying that it hadn’t been 48 hours, if they weren’t back by then, to call
them (thankfully, they were found safe).
Regardless,
it was decided that we should call, and since he lived with me, I needed to be
the one to do it. I did some quick
checking online as soon as I arrived home, and saw on the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office website that the person didn’t have to be gone 48 hours. I also read that being suicidal was one of
the possible reasons to get action quicker.
While I still wasn’t convinced, I called and said I needed to file a
report.
While
waiting, I decided I needed to bite the bullet so to speak, and call my
Dad. I let him know what was going on,
and he was immediately concerned and looking for something to do, something to
help quickly solve the question of where he was. I called my Mom back as well, letting her
know I had called the police and would let her know what they said after. She tried to stay calm, but I think it was tough. I believe that they both had a similar
reaction as I did- a bit of concern, but a belief that he would walk through
the door shortly. We all felt there was
no real need to panic.
The house
was oddly quiet without the sound of the television or constant chatter and
noises of Drew that normally filled the house.
There were no distractions, the house was very clean because we had just
put it on the market to sell and had cleared all the clutter away. I just waited.
A uniformed
officer arrived about an hour later. I
can clearly picture him standing, he refused the offer of a chair, which meant
I stood also. Michael paced around the
house. The officer stood at the end of
my kitchen counter with his laptop turned away from me. As soon as I gave the basic info, he pulled
Austin’s information up and got wide eyed.
That alarmed me. I remember
telling the officer that I was aware that he had some outstanding tickets, and
had a court date coming up for his recent arrest, but that it was all misdemeanor
things. I hoped I was right, hoped there
wasn’t more we didn’t know about. He
confirmed for me that nothing serious was on his record, and nothing from the
past week. He had just been surprised at
the number of tickets a 26 year old could accumulate, with several of them yet
unpaid. While the officer was nice, I
instantly felt like he was being nice out of respect for me, while writing Austin
off as a troublemaker.
It was in
the moment of the officer giving me the unsaid impression that he had no real concern,
that it hit me- this was real, there was real reason for concern, Austin was
gone. I turned from being the passive
report filer who thought there ‘may’ be a problem, to serious about it. I gave the officer details of the recent
discussions Austin had with Kelly, intent on convincing the officer that Austin
was suicidal and they needed to take this seriously. I gave him details of Austin’s life over the
past three years, from breakup to job changes, to constant physical pain, all
in an attempt to get the officer to understand.
As I convinced the officer, I convinced myself too. Looking at just the facts, this could be
bad. Looking back, I had no idea how
bad, no idea where this would lead and how our lives would change. But at least I finally understood that it was real.
The officer
left after telling me that it would probably take about 10 days for a detective
to be assigned to his case. He
emphasized that our family should take the lead in looking for him. He suggested calling everyone we knew who he
could have been in contact with, but not much else. When he walked out of the door, while I still
thought Austin may just show up, I knew we needed to start taking action.
Calls to the
few contacts of Austin’s we had yielded nothing. So Day 1 ended. No one slept much in our family that night,
or for many nights to come. But, being
the one person in the world who can sleep anytime anywhere, I did eventually
drift off. I woke repeatedly, always
hoping I’d heard the lock turning, but never actually hearing it happen. Michael stayed mostly quiet, but didn’t sleep
much either.
The Early Weeks
I won’t try
to detail the steps and actions that everyone took. There is so much that I won’t remember, or do
justice. I only know for sure, what happened
from my perspective. There were so many
people involved, so many people that we will be eternally grateful to. They may think they did no good because they
didn’t find him. They are wrong. If you’re reading this and you helped in any
small way, you did us a world of good.
You gave us hope.
By the
morning after the report was filed, my Mom and a few family members from the
Mexico Beach area (who had been gathered together for vacation) were on their
way to my house. By that morning, I also
later learned that my Dad was tromping through woods all around my house. Since Austin had been wandering in those
wooded areas just days before, we all felt that if he had taken his life,
that’s where he would be found. No one
wanted my Dad in the woods alone, his physical health wasn’t suited for
it. Thankfully, he had wonderful friends
who stepped in and made sure he wasn’t alone after those initial hours. We all knew that regardless of his health or
physical ability, he would be there. I
loved him for that.
Michael and
I went to work, but he stayed as close to home as possible. I tried to work, but I’m sure I wasn’t very
productive. I didn’t know what I should
be doing, but I knew it wasn’t at the office.
But since I didn’t know what I should be doing, and I wasn’t comfortable
asking for time off to search, I stayed. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing that I
was able to continue on, or maybe it shows my previously mentioned pension for
ignoring issues. But it’s what I did,
right or wrong.
My Mom, two
aunts and two cousins arrived that evening.
It was so nice to see them, that for a few brief moments, I almost
forgot why they were there. These are
women of action though, so they got to work.
A flyer was designed quickly and taken to a print shop for copies to be
made. Every taxi company in town was
called since we believed he may have planned to take a taxi to take care of the
tickets. His room was searched. Boy was that a mess. I was actually pretty mad with him over that
since we had just put the house on the market and his room was not ready for
prime time, or even close. So not only
was it searched, it was cleaned.
Homeless shelters were called.
Hospitals were called. Media
outlets were called and sent flyers.
Speaking of
the media…. Ah, the media and the misconceptions that the public has about the
media and how missing persons cases are presented to the public. We quickly learned, much to our naïve
surprise, that it was all about the ‘story’ and not much about the person. Austin was a 26 year old male, and though he
had a sweet baby face with dimples, wasn’t too much of a story. So getting any coverage was very tough. There are cases that the public becomes wary
of, with children or young women constantly shown. They may have interviews on all the national
networks. They may have signs made and
displayed at businesses and churches.
Their family members may turn down requests for interviews because so
many come in. That wasn’t the case with
us. That isn’t the case with most
missing persons, but especially men. Our
family, and so many more we’ve met, had to beg for coverage. We literally begged reporters and producers
to show Austin’s face. Because we didn’t
give up, we did get a few interviews and did get his face shown a few
times. We were fortunate, so many don’t.
We weren’t
getting any information from the calls being made, so we decided to start
getting flyers out. Austin’s friend
Kelly stayed involved and got a friend to make many more copies of the flyer
than we thought we’d need. In those
early days we thought this was a sprint, didn’t realize it was a marathon. Oh how I laugh at our innocence now. While Dad and others continued foot searches
of the wooded areas, we took to the streets with flyers.
We actually
had fun, which I know sounds odd. At one
point, I was in a vehicle with my cousin Mark driving, and friends Bart and Jason
with us. We had grown up spending time
together in the summer, playing till all hours of the night. So we laughed together about old times, about
funny memories, and more. I spoke
earlier of irrational fears, and another surfaced with the flyers. I had a real fear of going in places and
asking to hang a flyer. It makes no
sense, I have no idea what ‘terrible’ thing I thought might happen, but the
thought of doing it made me queasy.
Thankfully, we had Bart with us.
Bart knows no stranger and I’m pretty confident, has no fears. Our differences can be listed out for miles,
but I appreciate that quality in him. While
we went one direction, others in mom’s family went other ways.
While we did
that, others were organizing more ground search help, primarily friends of my
Dad. Word was also starting to spread
and friends had started to venture out into areas on their own. Often, we didn’t even learn about that until
much later. Everyone who knew about it
wanted to help. For some reason, I kept
it quiet with our circles, and I honestly don’t know why. It might have been a belief that if I started
telling people it would become more real.
I think it had more to do with being confident we’d find answers quickly
somehow, and didn’t need everyone involved.
(Here’s another spot to laugh at my ignorance, I won’t count them, it
would be too self defeating).
I did pray a
lot through these early days. Probably
more than I had in years, even though my faith was active and strong I
thought. It was strong; it had just
never been tested quite like this. It
was during this time that I started to think that I needed to redefine hope for
myself. It had always been a lightweight
word, conjuring images of things I wanted and prayers answered in very specific
ways. The hope I had in my life was more
about a bright sunny spin on life, a belief that ‘it will all work out’ than
something real that had depth and meaning.
I wasn’t yet sure that I knew fully what was blooming, but I started to
have a change in my heart.
I've been trying to think of how to express what I feel, and I'm still at a loss. But this photo might tell it best. I'm standing beside those I love, with the past in the near distance, and holding out that smiling face hoping that someone will see the color and the life and remember Austin. It's not that our lives are now in black and white- but that our lives are now a canvas for sharing our story of hope, and any talents that we have, for those who are hurting. 
