It has been a while since I have posted anything on here period, but especially anything about Tricia Reitler. A couple of years ago I posted a blog really hitting home to the heart of the matter about my feelings on that subject. I have resisted writing anything else because I felt strongly that I had said it so well that I didn't want to do anything to trample on that memory.
This year, on March 29th, I was really busy with a work-imposed activity and wasn't able to take a day away like I usually do to reflect on my time with Tricia, my time at IWU, and just my life in general. I guess it has taken me a month, and the occurrence of Tricia's sister's birthday to jog me out of my own personal issues to remember the lessons from Tricia that we all need to be reminded of daily:
Appreciate life-If you talk to members of Tricia's family, you will hear about a wonderful young woman that loved to laugh and appreciate life.
Appreciate all that you have because every second is precious and you never know when it all might change (This isn't just something to learn from Tricia-it's so impactful that Jesus talked about it as well.)
Make sure to learn from the past so that you are not doomed to repeat it.
College is such an exciting, dynamic time. It offers the possibility of new possibilities. Students go off to college thinking that they can change the world and that they have it all figured out merely because they got acceptance in a letter. The burden on all of us and what I take away from this year is that we need to help students realize that they do not have to be in such a hurry to grow up and take responsibility. We need to come along beside them and share in the wonder of it all. We need to help them see that they can slow down enough to actually look around and enjoy the ride that they're on! So much of college is preparing for the future that oftentimes, students forget that they are not even 20 years old and that they might never have an experience like the one they are going through now.
On this, the 15th year since Tricia's disappearance, I take away the fact that I want to continue to have the zest for life of a 19 year old--tempered by the experience of a 35 year old--so that I can help a whole new generation of Tricia's learn about possibility and responsibility.
For anyone interested in getting a 2008 update to help focus your prayer time for Tricia and her family, see the article and link below to the Marion Chronicle piece that was published in March. I hope that it encourages you as much as it did me, that we are not the only ones that still think about Tricia from time to time!
Mom: Please help us find Tricia! IWU student’s disappearance hard on family
BY MISHELE WRIGHT
“It’s just not fair,” Donna Reitler said about the unsolved disappearance of her daughter, Tricia.Tricia Reitler, a 19-year-old Indiana Wesleyan University student, disappeared 15 years ago today. March 29, 1993, the college freshman, originally from Ohio, walked a half mile to Marsh Supermarket, 4512 S. Adams St., and bought a root beer at the pharmacy next door.She never made it back to her dorm room at Bowman Hall, though. Her clothes were found in a field between Center Elementary School and Seybold Pool. Suspects and leads have come and gone, police have said. Still, there are no answers, no charges and no Tricia.After 15 years, Donna Reitler said not knowing what happened to her daughter still is painful.“It’s hard because there’s someone out there who knows where she is,” she said. “There’s not anything we can do, but it still feels like we let her down.”Although Tricia would be 34 years old now, her mother still thinks of her as she was then.“It’s crazy to me, because she’ll always be 19,” she said.Reitler said it’s difficult seeing Tricia’s friends, who are grown with families of their own. She thinks about her own daughter and what may have been. She also realizes that Tricia has been gone for almost as long as she was with them, she said.“She was such a wonderful person,” she said. “She just had so much to offer. She was caring and loving.”The hardest part for Reitler, however, is not having her oldest daughter with her and the rest of the family, she said. Her other three children have grown, and she now has grandchildren — who have never met their Aunt Tricia.Every year on the anniversary of the disappearance and on Tricia’s birthday, each member of the Reitler family takes off work and spends the day together, in remembrance of Tricia.“You have to,” Reitler said. “It significantly changed our lives (when she disappeared).”“We all know life goes on,” she said. “We talk about her and what would have been. You never forget. I just wish we could find her.”Reitler, who is in contact with the Marion Police Department about once a year, still has hope that her daughter will be found, but she said she knows chances are slim after all the years that have gone by. Her fear is that people will stop looking, she said.Deputy Chief Cliff Sessoms said the case will remain open until it’s solved, but it’s going to take a witness coming forth with new details to solve the mystery.“It means a lot to a lot of us,” he said. “I was a detective at the time, and I remember getting a page for a missing person.”He said the officers worked hard on the case and followed every lead they got, and they haven’t forgotten about Tricia.“There was a tremendous amount of follow-up on this case,” he said. “I’m confident that, as a department, we followed up on every lead. It became personal for many (of the officers).”Last year, the police department entered Tricia’s dental records to the National Dental Image Repository, a program set up for missing persons. If another agency were to find remains, they could check the dental records with Tricia’s to see if they match. Sessoms said the department also is working on a DNA profile of Tricia, using her parents and siblings’ DNA, which will be entered into a large national DNA database.Sessoms said he’d like to put closure to the case, especially for the family, but there just isn’t enough evidence. He compared solving the case to putting together a puzzle, where all the pieces must fit together. In Tricia’s case, pieces of the puzzle are missing.“I’d like to believe there’s someone out there who knows something,” he said. “For whatever reason, they haven’t come forward. Some people think their information isn’t significant. The worst thing somebody can do is have that one key and not come forward. That could be the one piece that breaks the case open.”Over the 15 years, police department has maintained a bulletin board with information about Tricia. The board contains a map and a timeline of what happened that evening and pushpins with string, connecting what witnesses heard or saw that evening. Sessoms said the board remains up as a reminder to the officers that Tricia still is out there.“We haven’t forgotten about this case, Tricia or her family,” he said. “We’re going to continue to press on, and we’re confident the case will be solved. The person who holds the key is still out there, and that’s who we need to hear from.”Sessoms said it’s important for people to remember the case and to know who Tricia is and who she was back then.“When I drive down 45th Street, there’s not a time I don’t think about this case and wonder what happened and where she’s at,” he said.Reitler said she knows Tricia’s case touched many hearts.“From day one, we knew that (the police in Marion) cared for Tricia, too,” she said. “There was no doubt they wanted to find her.”She said she understands that police don’t have anything else to follow up on, especially as time goes on, but she doesn’t want people to forget about her daughter and to quit looking.“I’ll always be grateful for the police department and the city of Marion,” she said. “The people were wonderful to us.”Alma Caldwell, Swayzee’s town clerk/treasurer, has kept Tricia’s picture hanging up at city hall since the young girl disappeared. When the flyer gets worn and faded, she makes a new copy to hang up.“I probably won’t take it down till I’m not the clerk anymore,” she said. “I just don’t have the heart to take it down, because if it were my daughter or my son …”At the time of Tricia’s disappearance, Caldwell had a son and daughter who were headed to college soon.“How devastating is that?” she said. “You send your kids off to college, and you expect them to come back. It brings it close to home.”Every time Caldwell hears that a body has been found, she thinks that maybe it’s Tricia, she said.“There’s no closure for that family,” she said. “I was hoping she would be found eventually, but it’s been 15 years. I just really feel bad about it.”
