One afternoon when I was 17, I went grocery shopping with my Nana.
It was just an ordinary errand – until it wasn’t.
As she stood in the checkout line, I wandered over to the Missing Children board near the exit and looked it over.
I saw before me a sea of unfamiliar faces. Looking over each one, I came to one I recognized – it was my sister.
My sister’s picture was up on that board.
My sister, who had then been gone for almost a year.
No longer missing – deceased. Yet, there she was, staring back at me.
At first, I thought I was imagining it.
We were over 200 miles from where she’d run away. Why would her photo still be up?
But when Nana stood beside me and asked, “What’s wrong?” as I stared, speechless, I knew I had not been mistaken.
I overheard her tell an employee that they needed to update their board. “This little girl is dead. You need to fix it,” she told them.
My loyal defender. I could hear the tears mounting in her voice. In the parking lot, she hugged me tight. It was a hug I needed.
I can’t fully describe the emotions that came over me on that day – the grief, memories, confusion, sadness. More things too – things too dark to mention.
That board — meant to help — reopened wounds I hadn’t yet learned to live with.
A Plea for Thoughtfulness
If you manage a missing persons board, please check your listings regularly.
If someone has been found – especially if they’ve passed – please update the board.
If you share Amber alerts, take a moment to verify if the person is still missing before sharing.
It might not seem so important, but these small acts matter in a big way. They matter to the families who are still searching, and to those of us who are grieving.
I don’t want to discourage anyone from sharing these posts or making these boards. They save lives.
But I’ve seen outdated alerts shared more than once lately, and I ask you to consider the impact this may have on survivors.
I’m lucky my Nana was there with me that day. Teenage me wouldn’t have handled it so well on my own. And that’s not a place you want to be in alone.
History of Missing Children Posters
Missing children came the forefront of national news during the early 1980s, following a campaign to share information about Etan Patz, a 6-year-old boy who went missing on his way to the bus stop the morning of May 25, 1979. He was the first child to appear on milk cartons nationwide.
Following the high-profile abduction and murder of their son Adam in 1981, John and Revé Walsh worked to set up The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
The NCMEC was established by the 1984 Missing Children’s Assistance Act with a mission to find missing children, reduce child sexual exploitation, and prevent victimization.
Efforts to share information about missing children received a major boost when national retailer Walmart began featuring missing children prominently on bulletin boards near the doors.
According to news reports, a Darthmouth, Mass. store employee named Don Sloan originally had the idea to create profiles of missing children.
Sloan told reporters he gathered the photos from state police records across the nation and said he was grateful management enthusiastically agreed to the idea.
Sloan started with posters he made for 21 children.
Walmart decided to create a chain-wide policy of displaying these boards to help fight child abduction, and Sloan stated plainly that the boards would be updated regularly as information was received about the children.
According to some estimates, about 2,300 children go missing every day in the United States.
According to the 1999 NISMART study, children tend to go missing under five typical circumstances:
- Children have absented themselves from the home temporarily due to misunderstandings or family trouble
- Children are lost, stranded or injured
- Children run away, or are thrown away
- Children are abducted by a family member
- Children are abducted by a stranger
According to the National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children study:
Runaways leave on their own initiative, often due to family conflict or a desire to escape a painful situation, while thrownaway children have been abandoned by their families. These children face significant safety hazards.
Abducted children are taken without their consent by another person, which can be a non-custodial parent, a relative, or a stranger.
Abductions by non-family members or strangers are considered the most dangerous.
UPDATED 2013 NISMART SUMMARY
