We Found Cheryl

We Found Cheryl. THANKS TO YOUR PRAYERS! In the Communion of Saints--thanks to all our dear brothers and sisters in Christ praying for her! Your prayers, besides helping to find her, gave me and Jim great comfort--we knew God was hearing the prayers!

For the past week we have been terrified that she might be dead. You cannot believe the scenarios that run through one’s head, struggling to think what might have happened to her. Also, I kept waking with nightmares thinking of her in the most horrible situations. She’s our daughter, we love her. We even had bizarre thoughts that her husband might have killed her, even though we knew for certain that he never would. The story’s he keep telling us of her disappearance were a bit confused--but he was as distrught or more so than we were--how absurd to think such thoughts!


Today, after Mass, we printed some flyers with her picture and decided to visit some of the places in Salt Lake that she liked to frequent and ask everyone we could if they had seen her and post pictures. We had not done this before, because my daughter Cheryl is a bit irresponsible and we wondered if she just left, was safe, and just didn’t bother to call us. But then when more than a week passed--we were terrified.

We decided first to go to Cheryl’s husbands grandmothers house--where her husband was now staying and give him pictures of Cheryl to give to the police. It’s about a 40 mile drive to Salt Lake, and it was a Sunny day, “Jim,” I said, “Let’s stop by Pioneer Park first before we go to his house.” My thought was that she might be doing drugs again and Pioneer Park area is a known place to score drugs. I thought we could stop there on our way into town and our way out of town.

We drove around Pioneer Park scanning every square inch for any signs of her or her car, then we drove past a small narrow street, and I said, “Jim, I think that’s her car!.” We drove down the street but her car is blue and that car was purple. “Sorry, I’m just hoping.” “That’s okay.” Jim said, there is this other little street that I think we should try.” Because we took the turn we had to go around a large block, “Jim, drive down this street, this is where I came to go to the Gateway and was scared walking past tons of homeless people.”

As we drove slowly down the street we could see tons of homeless people just hanging out on the street--”JIM STOP--That’s her car!” “Where?” “right here, I’m sure stop.” As I looked at the car--I knew it was her car--but I second guessed myself--was I just seeing what I wanted to see? No this was her car. We pulled up along side the car--it had a Salt Lake Community College parking sticker on the front windshield--“this is her car!”

We were along side the “Wiegand center.” I did not know what the Wiegand center was but felt strangely comforted because it was named after a previous Catholic Bishop. We went inside, scanning every homeless person we saw. We showed our picture to the girl at the front desk and she showed it to an older woman--who I suppose was a manager of sorts. The older woman said she had never seen her before, and said that we probably would get no satisfaction looking for her because, “people around here are tight-lipped.”

I started crying as we walked out--for some reason, this morning I just knew today would be the day we found her, and I felt dejected and shaky--I sensed she knew Cheryl, and she was being “tight-lipped.” We walked out the door, and, I saw her--”Cheryl!” Jim said, “where“ “there---straight ahead of me“--I almost did not believe she was there--her back was toward us--“Jim it’s her“, “Where?” he asked again as I walked over to her and grabbed her tightly, sobbing--my daughter you’re here--your alive.

She is doing drugs again, she does not want help, she talked with us, but said she was happy to be living on the streets--it was her choice--she did not want to return home with us. She told us she had broken up with her husband and told him she was leaving him--her husband did not volunteer any of this information when he told us she went missing--oh sigh.

We found Cheryl--almost immediately--coincidence?--with God there are no coincidences--our prayers and yours were answered, we were lead directly to her--Thank You Jesus! Cheryl had only been there for a few moments--the very few exact moments we were there at the very few moments in time.

At one point in our conversation a homeless man, James, came up to us. I was so distraught I was sobbing and he came over and comforted me, “Trust in the Lord.” he commanded me, “He will lead you in all your ways. He will shine a light so you will never walk in darkness” Jim was talking with Cheryl, I had gone to the side of the sidewalk, sobbing. James stood there and in a very confused manner saw that his words, comforted me, and kept saying every Bible verse, in a very disjointed way, he could think of --I loved him for his compassion in trying to console me in my tears.

James, the homeless man, said as he left, “If you ask God for a fish, He will not give you a snake.” Thank you Jesus, for every thing--you are in control, you give good things to those who ask. You even gave me James to comfort me in my grief--Jesus I trust in You!

Thank you all for your prayers!