I remember anticipating a creative writing class in which I had just enrolled as a young college student. All the 'stuff' that had been bouncing around in my head forever was going to pour forth, spilling onto pages and pages of wonderful, witty, award-winning prose. That was until the first writing assignment - and the first blank piece of paper. Nothing poured forth, or out, or anywhere, for that matter. I think I managed to turn something in; then, too afraid to see the results - I dropped the class.
That was more years ago than I care to admit; and my major changed to accounting, and the only by-lines I achieved were on audits, and then business reports. By then, my sibling was an over-achiever at a highly rated newspaper - and we were both in the 'baby' business, parenting nine children. The only thing I wrote in those days was permission slips and my signature on endless forms, notes, and checks.
Along the way, a funny thing happened - my kids grew up and I found the Internet. I also rediscovered a somewhat unexplainable addiction to true crime stories - that began to surface in the seeds planted in the mind of a small child. Sitting on the front steps of a Chicago house on a hot summer night, just on the outskirts of Brighton Park, listening to the adults talk about the horrifying disappearance and death of two girls that went to 'the show' and never came home, the Grimes sisters were never forgotten. Fueling the addiction would be the same afore-mentioned sibling, who spent his early journalism days as a crime reporter for the City News Bureau.
I am now the Illinois Area Director for The Doe Network http://www.doenetwork.org/ and its sister organization, North American Missing Persons Network http://www.nampn.org/. My website, http://www.someoneschild.com/, dedicated to the families of the missing and unidentified in Illinois, is still a work in progress. This blog is my belated attempt to channel my love, if not skill, of writing with my dedication to bringing our missing home and giving the unidentified back their names. Along the journey, there will be time, I hope, to explore the cases and the stories of those that should also be remembered. We will not forget.
