She’s Still Missing. So Is Your Humanity.
Public Service Announcement
There’s a little girl missing.
A river took her. A dam holds secrets. And all you bastards care about is whether her mother should be crucified online before the child’s even been found, or if rescue is competent enough to even find her.
Let me walk you through this tragedy—not the one in the water. The one playing out in our own backyard:
The tragedy of a town that doesn’t know how to shut the hell up and grieve like human beings.
The Incident
A young girl—sweet, small, and full of the life kids are made of—disappeared near a dangerous dam in our region.
The timeline is still forming, but here’s what we do know:
She was last seen near a riverbank.
The water levels were high from recent rains.
Search and rescue has been deployed around the clock.
They’ve covered areas both above and below the dam.
As of this writing, she is still missing.
You think you’d have done something differently? Kept a tighter grip? Not been near the water? You’re lying to yourself. Or maybe you just don’t remember what it’s like to be a parent under stress, in real life, in this godforsaken pressure cooker of a society we all live in.
And if you’ve never had a child on the spectrum—or even just a high-energy runner—you don’t know jack. Some kids disappear in a blink. A blink.
The Dam
Now let’s educate the ignorant since that seems necessary:
Water weighs 8.34 pounds per gallon.
A low-head dam creates what rescuers call a “drowning machine”—a deadly reverse current that can trap bodies indefinitely.
The current pulls in logs, branches, trash, even boats and holds them there like a clenched fist under the surface.
You don’t just “shut it off.”
You don’t just “go check the dip.”
And you sure as hell don’t second-guess trained crews in the middle of an active search because you watched a livestream from your recliner and didn’t like what you saw.
The Response
Rescue teams have been searching since the call went out. Boats, divers, sonar, spotters—across miles of treacherous terrain, with zero breaks in pressure.
They’re not tweeting their every move. They’re out there doing it. And they’ve probably seen more heartbreak in 48 hours than most of you keyboard warriors ever will.
Meanwhile, the local commentariat is foaming at the mouth, blaming the mother, the geography, the fish ladder, the weather, and everything else under the sun that isn’t them.
The Outrage Circus
The hypocrisy is nauseating.
Where were y’all when kids were getting left in homes with tweakers and pedophiles down the block?
Where were your voices when known abusers got wrist-slapped by the county court?
Where was your outrage then?
But this? This one hits your feed and you finally find your voice—to shit on a grieving mother?
Y’all are real brave when it’s someone else’s pain.
Let me make this real simple:
Your opinions can be folded neatly into a small rectangle, dipped in river mud, and shoved squarely up your collective asses.
This is a tragedy.
Not a Netflix documentary.
Not a reality show audition.
Not your moment to feel morally superior.
The Real Conversation
What we should be talking about is this:
How fast tragedy can strike.
How little most of us understand about water safety.
How a child can vanish in seconds, even with a loving parent nearby.
How maybe we could offer support, grace, or even just silence, instead of firebombing the family while they wait for the worst news of their lives.
Maybe—just maybe—we could act like a goddamn community.
Drop off food. Hold a vigil. Donate to the search effort.
And if you can’t manage that—say nothing at all.
Final Word
To the mother of that missing child:
You do not owe anyone a single answer.
Your grief is real. Your pain is valid. You are not alone.
To the trolls and finger-pointers:
You are the problem.
And if you don’t understand why by now, there’s no dam on Earth strong enough to hold back what you deserve.
To the rest of us—
Let this be a wake-up call.
Because the river doesn’t care who you are.
And tragedy doesn’t make house calls—it breaks down the door.
So before you speak next time, ask yourself:
Would you want someone like you to be the one commenting…
if it were your child in that water?
Anything can happen to any of us. Don’t think it can’t—or won’t—be you.
—North Central Confidential