3.18.24

Every street is dark

And folding out mysteriously

Well, that’s the chance we take to be

Always working

Reaching out

For a hand that we can’t see

This is a big one.

I’ve been putting the words together in my brain for a few days now. In some ways, this piece has been under construction for 20 years. In other ways, I’m putting it together on the fly.

None of this makes sense, I know. But that’s ok because what I’m writing about is nonsensical. Lacking in sense.

Twenty years ago tomorrow — March 19, 2004 — a young woman I I never got to meet changed my worldview dramatically.

Brianna Maitland was 18 when she disappeared. Her car was found backed into an abandoned house in Montgomery, VT.

The old Dutchburn brothers had lived there for years and years and years. When I was a kid, my family would drive by and Ma would say, “I wonder what those old Dutchburn boys are up to these days.” I think they were twins.

Now the house is gone. So are the old Dutchburn boys. So is Brianna.

She’d been on her way home from work at The Black Lantern Inn. Next thing anyone knew, there was her car, abandoned and rifled through. And no one has seen her since.

I was the brand new newspaper editor at The County Courier, the once-great (if I do say so myself) weekly newspaper of Franklin County. That’s gone too now.

I’d been on the job about a month, still learning the ropes of being in charge of editorial, getting a feel for the area, trying to convince myself that I wasn’t in over my head, even though I was for a while.

Next thing I know, I’m walking the banks of the Missisquoi River with a father and mother who are desperately trying to find their daughter. Looking in piles of brush, behind boulders, and plenty of other places a parent would never want to look for their kid. I had two little ones of my own at the time, with a third on the way. I never looked at them the same way after the time I spent with Bruce and Kellie, consumed by the overwhelming atmosphere of their sorrow and confusion.

But look, I’ve written about this on the blog before. You can read it here and here if you’d like.

What I’ve been thinking about lately is the impact 20 years has on a situation like this.

I haven’t talked to the Maitlands in a long time. I don’t know where their heads and hearts are at with Brianna’s disappearance. Maybe they’ve come to terms with things in some way, found a bit of peace while also holding out hope that their girl is out there somewhere, safe and happy.

I know that’s what I hope for them and for Brianna. At the very least.

Turning this over in my head as the anniversary of her disappearance approached, I noticed that that word keep turning up: hope. I imagine there have been days and nights — probably countless, in fact — when Bruce and Kellie have survived on little else.

Hope is a constant meditation, a prayer, screamed silently to the universe or God or whatever. It’s a down payment on impermanence. A wish for change.

Which brings me to tonight’s song.

Finally.

Hold On Hope is a track from legendary indie rockers Guided By Voices’ 1999 album, Do The Collapse. It’s a song that beautifully evokes the sometimes razor-thin strand of something that keeps us from falling into utter despair.

That something is hope. It gets us out of bed in the morning, propelling us back into tough situations. It gets us back into bed at night, compelling us to dream. It drives the desire to change, to evolve, to take big chances and seize tiny victories.

Hope is in brightly lit conference rooms and the darkened gloom of a canopied forest. It’s in the gleam of a young child’s eye and the struggling breath of a dying elder. It burns as bright as we allow it and as dull as we force it.

Hope is a hug. A sigh. A sob.

And it lives in the hearts of everyone. Especially those still waiting 20 years later for some word — any word — about their beloved child.