“Jacob’s Hope” is alive and well.
The remains of Jacob Wetterling were found last week. There was always a hope that Jacob, 11 when he was abducted, would someday return home, even though that hope dwindled with every passing year – all nearly 27 of them.
The news last week was horrifying and yet to many strangely a relief. There will no longer be any agony of wondering what happened to him, where his body was left, and who perpetrated the cruel and twisted crime. Most of all, Jacob’s parents, Jerry and Patty, and his siblings now will have some measure of closure, a funeral to honor him and a chance to bury their beloved Jacob in sacred ground.
Jacob Wetterling, such a happy and lively boy, was so cruelly taken from his safe-and-warm world on the evening of Oct. 22, 1989. He became quite literally the “poster boy” for missing children cases far and wide. His parents, siblings and others who loved him were determined not only to keep Jacob’s memory alive but to help educate others about child safety and what we can all do to help prevent abductions, and what we can do right after one occurs.
“Jacob’s Hope” became a rallying cry for the Jacob Wetterling Foundation and Resource Center. Parents of children who were abducted, abused and/or murdered began to form a support network of empathy. Places were named after Jacob and his Hope. Loved ones shared their grief and never-ending sorrow as they lobbied legislators to pass child-safety measures and ways to initiate instant notification if an abduction should happen, such as “Amber’s Law.”
The photos, videos and memories of the bright, smiling, blue-eyed boy from St. Joseph is what launched so many of those efforts, and the outreach education from the Jacob Wetterling Foundation has had, and continues to have, positive effects worldwide.
This newspaper, the Newsleader, was founded in 1989 just months before Jacob was abducted. Throughout the years, its reporters wrote frequent updates and commemoration stories about Jacob, along with interviews with parents, teachers, friends and others who knew and loved him, as well as periodic press conferences when there may have been a lead or development in the case. It was always a heartwrenching task to write those stories because it became so palpable to those writers that the rock-bottom grief of the Wetterling family would never go away.
During an interview 12 years ago, Patty said the agony gets a bit easier to bear with time because life for their other loved ones must go on, but she quickly added the pain will never go away. She also said she still harbored hope that Jacob would someday return home and even had dreams to that effect.
Our deepest sympathies go out to the Wetterlings. Jacob has “come home” but of course not in the way that was so longed for. The Wetterlings will have to endure the pain of that awful, unthinkable loss all over again as they prepare to bury their son. Jacob would be so proud of his family and of all those who looked for him, who prayed for him and who made strides toward universal child safety.
Sadly, Jacob, you are gone, but your “Hope” lives on.
