Hope

Whenever I hear the name Wetterling in the news, my attention is immediately focused on what is being said. These last three days of local news covering the 20-year investigation of the kidnapping of Jacob Wetteting in October 1989 has gotten my hopes up for closure for Jacob's family and friends.

His mom, Patty say in interview yesterday that she didn't know what to think or what she wants. I think we can all understand that emotion.

Whenever I hear news about Jacob, I don't think back twenty years - I think back ten years. It was ten years ago that I was invited to serve on the Wetterling Foundation Board of Directors and I had the opportunity to meet the Wetterling family.

Whenever I hear news about Jacob, I re-experience the heart-stopping emotion I felt during my first conversation with Jacob's father, Jerry.

I met Jerry at the Wetterling Foundation offices in St. Joseph, Minnesota for an interview prior to joining the board. During our conversation, he said three words that impacted me as none ever had, "After Jacob's abduction..." As much as I had heard and read about the story, nothing prepared me for this.

I was talking to a man who had his child kidnapped and still didn't know where he was. I was having a one-on-one conversation with someone I had only seen in the news - on the news where the bad news is something that is happening to someone else, not you or someone you know.

Jacob became a real child to me (even though by this time, Jacob would have been about 22 years old). He stopped being a news story and became someone I cared about.

When I was serving on the board, I had clueless people say to me, "Are they still looking for him?"

As if that was the entire purpose of the foundation. The mission of the foundation was to prevent this from ever happening again.

As if a parent would ever stop. No parent would ever want to hear this from their child, "Why did you stop looking for me?"

I pray for the best outcome - whatever that may be.