April 3, 2021...Heidi Allen ~ Missing 9,863 days

Heidi Allen hasbeen missing: 852,163,200 seconds
or
14,202,720 minutes
or
236,712 hours
or
9863 days
or
1409 weeks
or
324 months
or
27 years
link to website here In April 1994, we wrote how many days Heidi was missing on our calendars. The Palladium Times, a local newspaper, kept track of the days on the front page.

​Over time, the visual count stopped, yet when April 3 rolls around each year, our family revisits the numbers. It's heartbreaking, depressing, and overwhelming then I remember there are families who have been searching, waiting, praying, hoping, and advocating for even longer than we have.

When you lose a loved one to cancer, illness, an accident, or age...it's a tragic loss and changes your life forever. When you literally lose a loved one, the unknown has the potential to debilitate you...IF you let it.

One thing I've learned as I've lived the journey of having a missing loved one, and missing other families of the missing...WE DON'T GIVE UP!! Families of the missing have a resilience and ability to cope beyond anything you can understand until you are forced to travel this road, a road I pray you never understand fully. This year, twenty-seven years later is very different for me. Instead of planning and doing something for the family and our community, I'm doing something private.

COVID has strengthened my resilience on some levels and wore me down on others. I couldn't wrap my head around how to make a socially distanced and regulation remembrance. I had a choice, I asked myself, "What would Mom do?" Mom would say, "We'll remember Heidi in our own way and your blog is enough. Take care of yourself." This is what I'm doing.
​
Thank you for remembering Heidi Allen and all the missing across the country. There were 543,018 missing people in the United States in 2020. The good news, due to organizations like the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and their initiatives, the number is DOWN 411,878 from 1994 when Heidi disappeared. I'm grateful to see the numbers going down and pray for the day when no more children and adults disappear and no more families are forced to live with the unknown. Thank you for remembering Heidi and praying she is found and returned to our family!
Thank you for praying for our family and her friends.
Thank you for praying for all the missing!

Happy April 3 and Easter 2021!