To the Mothers of the Missing

I speak to you, mothers of the missing, whose hearts carry a weight no soul should bear.

May 11, 2025

Cross-post from Dottie Laster's Traffic Report

Dottie Laster for US Anti-Trafficking Czar. This amazingly poignant message should be heard by all men who do nothing. Her deep knowledge and experience capture what it is like to be a mother of a missing child. Will men ask, "Where is Jonah Rief?" Will men GIVE without requiring a receipt or requiring an answer from the mother as to how their donation will be spent? Could it be for survival while trying to find their child? Is that a dignified enough of an answer? https://www.givesendgo.com/Where-is-Jonah-Rief https://open.substack.com/pub/therebelpatient/p/where-is-jonah-rief-by-tammy-rief -

Peter70x7

To the Mothers of the Missing

To the Mothers of the Missing on Mother’s Day. Sisters, warriors, bearers of unbreakable love, today I speak to you, mothers of the missing, whose hearts carry a weight no soul should bear.

This day, Mother’s Day, comes with flowers and songs, but for you, it arrives with a shadow, a silence where your child’s voice should be. I stand here not to offer hollow comfort, but to honor your truth, your pain, and your unyielding strength.

What is this day to you? It is no soft celebration. It is a battlefield, where memory and hope clash. Your children, your babies, your dreams are not here to hold, yet they live in every breath you take. You carry them in your bones, in the quiet of the night, in the questions that haunt your days.

The world may turn its eyes away, but you do not. You search. You speak. You rise. They call you mothers, but they do not see the fullness of your fight. You are detectives, advocates, prophets of justice. You march through a wilderness of indifference, demanding answers, refusing to let your children’s names fade.

Your love is a fire that no absence can extinguish, a force that no system can silence. You are not merely grieving—you are remaking the world with your courage. America, with its promises of safety and liberty, has failed you. It has let your children slip through its cracks, left you to wander its cold edges. But hear this: your pain is not your burden alone. It is our shame, our call, our duty. We must walk with you, search with you, fight with you, until every child is found, every mother’s heart made whole.

On this Mother’s Day, I say to you: You are seen! Your love is a beacon, your strength a revolution. Hold fast to hope, for it is yours to wield.

And to the world, I say: Do not rest until these mothers rest. Do not celebrate until they celebrate. Their children are our children; their loss is our loss. Mothers of the missing, you are the heartbeat of this day. May your love light the way. May your voices shake the earth.

And may we, together, bring your children home!

Much Love,

Dottie