“Amy, run! What are you doing?” I saw her; she was there, right in front of me. I was helpless, just like I was eighteen years ago.
It was a frigid February afternoon in northeastern Ohio. It was one of those afternoons where your mortality becomes lost under the compact snow that lays dormant on the dirty, frozen ground. One of those afternoons that makes you wonder why you decided to stay in this part of the country. The cold ferociously bites into your being and does not let go. As a substitute teacher, I had the day off of work due to parent teacher conferences, so on my way out to my fiancée’s house in Lorain, I decided to take a detour down Wolf Road in Bay Village, anything to break up the monotony of that drive that I’ve made one too many times. However, something was different this day. Something pulled me into the Bay Square Shopping Plaza. I wasn’t sure what it was, but something wanted me there. Being from Lakewood, I’ve driven by these nonspecific stores before, but now there was an intense meaning behind them. I had to be there.
As I pulled into a spot across from a generic diamond store, suddenly the utter whiteness of the sky was transformed into a vast blue oneness and the sun revealed itself. The snow vanished and the orange, brown leaves of late autumn appeared. It was October 27, 1989 and the warm winds of summer danced precariously with the impending winter cold. The diamond store was now a Baskin Robbins ice cream shop, and there were young children milling about in their 80s garb that looked oddly reminiscent of the clothes that are worn by today’s preteens. As I sat in my car, I could see her. I tried yelling but my mouth was frozen shut. There she was, young Amy Mihaljevic, twirling around one of the old-fashioned posts holding up the awnings that adorned the building. She had her head down in that innocent, oblivious manner that young children seem to have when no one seems to be looking. Suddenly I could see him, walking up to her whispering something in her ear, and ultimately putting his arm around her and leading her off. They were walking toward me. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak. As they walked past my window, my eyes transfixed on Amy, she looked back at me. And was gone. Maybe I could do something. Maybe I can stop this from happening. I quickly got out of my car and the crispness of the present slapped me in the face. Snow. Cold. Diamond Store. Present. She was gone. Vanished. There was nothing that I could do. As I drove away, and the plaza shrunk smaller and smaller in my rearview mirror, my mind could only process one question: Why?
It was eighteen years ago last month that Amy Mihaljevic’s body was found on the frozen desolate landscape of Ashland County. The autopsy report showed that she was callously struck in the back of head with a blunt object and stabbed in the throat. According to the report she lay on that frozen ground for most, if not all, of the three months that searchers frantically looked for her. The anniversary of her being found has basically come and gone without so much as a blip on the local news radar. However, when the story first broke, the eyes of the nation were on the sleepy suburb of Bay Village. Even before the existence of the 24 hour news channel bombardment, there wasn’t anyone who couldn’t tell you the name of the young girl with the side-saddle pony tail. I was eleven at the time and honestly, I don’t really remember much about the case. This could be because of overprotective parents shielding me from the horrors of reality. Or it could be because of my own ignorant feelings of immortality. Nothing like that could ever happen to me. However, I do remember that picture. The ponytail. The slightly awkward smile. The purity of those piercing eyes. I definitely remembered the picture. However, the whole case was sort of a side note in my personal history growing up fifteen minutes away in Lakewood. All I really remember was my mom being very freaked out when we went trick-or-treating that particular Halloween in 1989.
Recently though, I have been feeling a strong sense of nostalgia. Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing to be forced away from the reality of the present, I don’t know. It does come in waves though. And recently I was hit with a nostalgic typhoon. Maybe it’s the fact that I will soon be getting married, or the all encompassing news on recent violent events, 9/11, Virginia Tech, Columbine, and Northern Illinois University, that seemed to be so uncommon throughout my youth. Or maybe it was just a longing for a time when nothing else really mattered but GI Joes and Transformers. Whatever it was, I wanted to feel those feelings again, and with the invention of the internet and YouTube, it is easier than ever. Whenever I get that feeling of being overtaken by the stressors of everyday life, late credit card payments, school loans, planning for a wedding, I simply type “Classic Nickelodeon” in the search function of YouTube and as the theme song to “Pinwheel” or “Today’s Special” plays, I feel a sense of dizziness and I am transported to my parent’s couch, home sick from school. It’s odd but I feel sort of guilty about it. It’s as if the poisons of adulthood taint those early, wholesome memories.
The wave of nostalgia crashed hard into me the other day as I was browsing Barnes and Noble in Crocker Park. As I was walking by the Ohio History section, Amy’s picture leaped out at me. It was on the cover of James Renner’s Amy: My Search for her Killer. I always felt an odd connection to this girl who I never met. She was my age, living fifteen minutes away from me when she was stolen. As an eleven year old, when the story broke, I knew it was big news. However, in my immature mind, this was something that was for adults to fix. This was an adult problem, which ultimately made the story such a side note in my personal history. However, as I stood looking at her picture in that bookstore, I now felt obligated to understand her plight. I am not that immature kid anymore who couldn’t compartmentalize the destructive forces that exist in this world. Despite my insufficient substitute teacher funds, I shelled out the twenty-five bucks and took the book, and Amy’s story, home with me. Her story was my problem now. I wanted to remember.
I am not much of a novel reader but I couldn’t put the book down. I literally read it cover to cover in one afternoon. It’s all there: the minute by minute account of her last day, the theories of how and why she was taken, and the possible suspects. Renner, the author, does an excellent job of giving us a complete account of the case. He seems to really want to find the person that did this horrible act. However, the conclusion of the novel relates that even to this day, eighteen years later, either this cold-blooded killer is dead, in jail, or still walks among us, possibly even through the western suburbs. While this certainly is a frightening thought, it is not the thought that frightens me the most. What is truly chilling is not that this monster vanished into the darkness; it is that Amy’s memory, her true essence, vanished with him. As I sat clutching the now finished novel, I thought this and shivered. But then I thought that maybe there was a reason for this, maybe this man was never found for a reason. Maybe there is a greater reason behind those tragic events that none of us can understand.
The last eighteen years of my life have been by most standards pretty atypical. I graduated from high school, went to college in Malibu, California where I interned in Hollywood, came home, worked in a television news station, hated it, changed careers, worked in a childcare center, loved it, went back to school, and now I am in the midst of finishing up my second degree to become a school teacher. It has taken me until the age of 29, in a roundabout fashion, to truly see what I wanted to do with my life. Eighteen years that Amy did not have the privilege of living. In fact, I thought of Amy the other day when I was substitute teaching in a second grade classroom in Lorain. During recess, a boy who was noticeably smaller then all the other students in the class came up to me crying saying that “no one liked” him. Just as I was about to tell him how nice of a boy he was and how everyone liked him, one girl, who is literally the spitting image of a younger Amy, side saddle ponytail and all, saw the distraught boy and asked if he wanted to play. The young boy wiped his eyes, conjured a smile, and walked away with the girl. As I sat watching the two walk away hand in hand, I realized the importance of that very moment. This girl could have been Amy twenty years ago. In fact one girl who grew up with Amy in Bay, relays a similar story about her on a MySpace page devoted to Mihaljevic. She states that after being picked on by the class bully, Amy took the boy’s arm forcefully and told him to “knock it off.” As I noticed the resemblance between Amy and the young girl in my second grade class, both physically and emotionally, I immediately saw the compelling significance of my life path.
There has to be a reason that I came home after college. There has to be a reason why I changed careers. There has to be a reason why I was so strongly drawn to Amy’s story. There has to be a reason why Amy’s killer has yet to be found. I have to believe. Maybe the mysteriousness of the case will keep it in the forefront of my mind, and becoming a teacher, I will prevent it from happening to one of my future students. Or perhaps these renewed thoughts about the innocent ten-year-old will conjure up some long lost memory from a witness on that fateful day. Or quite possibly it is this: my life path brought me here, in front of this keyboard, writing these simple words. Maybe Amy’s memory will help us remember our own sense of significance in a world that illuminates feelings of insignificance. Maybe someone will read these words and remember to hug a loved one just a bit tighter today. Maybe Amy will help us remember to speak just a little kinder to each other. Maybe she will help us remember to hold on and to cherish each present moment as it passes. Maybe Amy’s not gone. Maybe that monster never actually took her that day. Maybe, just maybe, she was placed in each and every one of us. Remember this. Remember Amy.
