Wow. I actually managed to very nearly (but not quite) get through the whole day without making this post. I certainly didn’t get through the day without thinking about her. Started last night, when I noticed that the clock said 12:00 and I said “Happy Birthday, Amanda” right back at it. Later, I prayed for her health and safety, wherever she may be. That’s actually something I find myself doing for the people I love more often than I’d like to admit. I always feel like it must be an obsession if every time I speak to God or make a wish or think of love, I remember these three young women who each changed my heart in their own way.
Funny thing about their birthdays, though. As of right now I have only ever seen two of the three of them on any of their birthdays, and each of those two only once each in all the years I’ve known them. Melissa I saw on her 16th birthday. Sara I saw on her 18th. Amanda, whose birthday is the 4th of July, I have never seen on her birthday. I have never been able to wish her a happy birthday in any meaningful way. I have remembered her birthday, but the same way I have done this week and this day, mostly by trying to get in contact with her and then just wishing her a happy birthday even though I didn’t find her.
I didn’t have to pay any money to search for her this time. I called up 800 US SEARCH and gave them my case number from December (so they could see the valid results I got and work from those) and asked them to run the same search again with the data we got last time, and they did it for free. Sort of. You see, there was no new data on Amanda (still hasn’t bought property or taken out a car loan in her own name, I suppose; neither have I), and the most recent address for her mother is no longer in the Db (which means she moved) but there are 600+ people in the US with her mother’s same name. Which would be more cold-calling than I am comfortable doing. So, I didn’t pay money for the search, which is good because I would have ended up with less results than last time.
I did some searches on free internet sources and found a few Amanda Kings listed in the states I know she’s lived in or has relatives in (OR and AZ) but none of them were the Amanda I was looking for. Actually, 800 US SEARCH gave me the addresses of several young women around the country with the exact same birthday as my Amanda (7/4/1980) and names of either Amanda Renee [any last name] or Amanda R. King, and I used my internet skills to pull up their phone numbers and call them all (about 12 calls total), but none of them were the Amanda I was looking for. One was fun; I kept getting an answering machine, but I hate leaving a message (because if it isn’t her, they won’t call back and if it IS her, she might not call back), so I tried it a few times and gave up for the day. I got a call at 3:30AM the next morning from that Amanda King wondering why I have been calling but not leaving a message. I love caller ID. That Amanda was in her 50s.
Anyway, no luck so far this year trying to find her. I thought I saw her in town six months ago, but she’s not listed if she is, and I haven’t seen her since. So, if anyone of you knows an Amanda Renee King, born on the 4th of July in 1980 whose mother was known to me as Sandie, but who also goes by the names Sandra P. Schneider and Sandra P. Montana, who has a brother named Chris (last name not known), let me know. All three of these people lived in the Phoenix area until late August 1996 when Amanda and Sandie moved to Coos Bay/North Bend, Oregon, which is where I last made contact with them, in the summer of 1997. Any help you can provide or databases you can access or direct me to would be great.
Otherwise, I’ll just keep praying for her, and wishing her a happy birthday to the empty room or the sky above.
Happy Birthday, Amanda King. I love you.
