I was in my second semester of college, 3,000 miles away from my home, when I first learned that my youngest sister, Jessika, had run away.
She was only 15, the baby of the family, and they told me she had left a note. She was sorry for getting a bad grade, and that she wanted to “find herself” in Seattle. It seemed like such a small thing at first, a childish thing. Kids run away sometimes—heck, I had run away before—but they come back, right? That’s when my parents told me she had already been missing for 3 days, and that was when I really felt that first explosion of mixed emotions—emotions that it would take years for me to really understand. Some feelings were familiar, like fear and anger. Some were subtle and toxic, like guilt and jealousy. All of them were strong—strong enough to steal away every good thought and force me into hiding away.
It was 108 days until my sister was recovered through a police sting operation and my family learned the awful truth that she had been trafficked for sex. Her recovery in many ways was just the beginning, because in so many ways the broken person who came home was not the little girl who had left.
In the years since, my family and I have fought, both for my sister and for the children across this country and the world who are at risk of having their innocence stolen as she had hers. We have joined organizations such as Team Hope and NCMEC, championed new laws to protect children from online predators alongside other amazing families, and, very importantly, we have all in our own time committed to therapy and self-care. For all the hardship and the pain that followed for the many years since, I could not be prouder of my family for everything they have done and the resilience they have shown. And I am happy to say that after a long time, I’m proud of myself, too.
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Zack’s Message of Hope
Don’t forget to love yourself. So often as a sibling of a tragedy, we will try so hard to compensate for the pain that the rest of our family is feeling. Maybe your parents, usually so strong, need you as a shoulder to cry on now. Maybe you have other siblings who are scared, and you have become their comfort. Maybe it feels like if somehow you can do it all perfectly enough, things will be okay. Life has made you grow up too fast, and the world is a heavy thing when we try and balance it all on ourselves. So don’t forget to love yourself, too. Be as kind to yourself as you are to your family, be as understanding with yourself as you would a friend. Through this you will become a healthier, stronger person, and the world will be a much lighter place on those shoulders. You might even find it beautiful again, in its own way.