I consider myself a fixer—someone who feels incomplete unless everyone around me finds happiness. When I take on a search case, I dive deep, exploring every avenue until there’s nothing left to pursue.
As a Search Angel, I often find myself emotionally invested in the cases I handle. The reality of spending hours, days, even months searching for someone only to discover that they have passed away can be incredibly disheartening, especially when I must deliver that news to the anxious family member seeking closure. As I went through my files this week, I was struck by the number of cases that have concluded in this heartbreaking manner. Just this past year, I solved two cases involving murders.
The first case was particularly unsettling. The woman I was looking for turned out to be the murderer of her husband, whom she had buried in a shallow grave in her front yard. Her daughter, separated from her for nearly 30 years, was reaching out to reconnect due to her own terminal diagnosis. I must admit, I was more shaken by what I uncovered than the daughter seemed to be. Although she felt sorrow at her mother’s actions, she had come to terms with her absence after so long. Sadly, we were unable to trace her siblings, who had also left home early in life.
The second case was even more tragic. Four siblings had been adopted out at a young age. Within just a few hours, I discovered that their mother had been brutally murdered, along with a brother they never knew. In my search for more information on the mother, I quickly located two of the sisters, who were also looking for their missing siblings. Despite being over 20 years apart, they were about to reunite thanks to a post that captured my attention. The calls I had to make the next day were bittersweet. How do you break the news to someone you’ve never met, living over a thousand miles away, that their mother was murdered 15 years ago and that there was another sibling lost in this tragedy? The emotional toll on families can be immense, and sometimes, they simply cannot recover.
I wish all reunions resulted in “happily ever after,” but that’s not always the case. So, as an Angel, do I stop searching when the outcomes can be so painful? No, not this Angel.
Because each time I hear those words, “You did it! You found them! I just spoke with my mother, father, or sibling,” it reminds me that every effort is worthwhile.