by Amanda Berry
I also said a prayer to Nilda Figueroa. When he first kidnapped me he told me this was all her fault, that if she hadn’t left him he wouldn’t have kidnapped me, Amanda, and Michelle. For a while I was actually angry at her. I guess I was mad at anything and anyone who I thought could have saved me all that pain. I had no idea then about all she endured, and so I asked her to forgive me for ever blaming her and told her I was sorry for what she went through. I also lit a candle for all missing children.
My parents took me to the Night Out Against Crime three months after I was freed. They had gone every year to hand out “missing” flyers with my picture. I wasn’t ready yet to speak publicly, but my dad got up and said what I wanted to, that we were there “for every missing child that’s out there.”
I hope I’ll be able to do more to help those kids soon. I am finding my voice.
May 5, 2014: Washington
Gina
Wow! The White House.
Our names are on the guest list, and two uniformed Secret Service officers greet us. One of them says it’s amazing to meet us, but she’s got that backwards: we’re the ones who are amazed.
We were invited to Washington by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, an organization that helped our families when we were gone. They are giving us their Hope Award, which goes every year to someone who inspires hope for missing children. The big awards dinner is at the Ritz-Carlton hotel tomorrow night, on the one-year anniversary of our escape.
The center flew us all here. I came with my parents and our neighbor Charlene Milam, who has done so much for my family over the years. Amanda brought Beth and two cousins, Tina and Tasheena. Our lawyers, Jim Wooley and Heather Kimmel, flew with us, too, but they insisted on paying their own way since they have vowed never to take a cent for working with us. They are like family now.
I had never been on a plane before, and neither had Amanda. Everybody told us not to worry about it—it couldn’t be easier, like sitting in your living room. Yeah, right! Our flight from Cleveland was so bumpy that people’s drinks were flying out of their hands and hitting the ceiling. Even passengers who flew a lot said it was scary, their worst flight ever. Before I was kidnapped, I would have thought: What bad luck that my first flight was so horrible. Now, after learning to focus on the positive, I think: What good luck that we landed safely.
We walk into the White House and see the East Room and the State Dining Room and the Blue and Green and Red rooms. On Seymour Avenue we used to call our rooms by their colors. I never imagined when I was living in that miserable pink room that one day I would be standing in this famous Red Room.
I have never seen such wide hallways and grand staircases. When we come to a shiny banister I whisper to Amanda that I bet the Obama girls slide down it when nobody’s around.
“I want a picture of me pretending to slide on it,” I tell her.
So I climb up on it, and she gets her camera ready.
“Gina, be careful,” Jim says. “You might fall.”
And, of course, I do!
“I bet I’m the first Puerto Rican to fall in the White House!” I say, laughing.
Just then we run into Bo, President Obama’s dog, in the hallway. He’s adorable, and the guy walking him lets us pet him for a few minutes.
I’m thinking that this has to be the single coolest day of my life. Then, as we are getting ready to leave, someone tells us that Vice President Biden would like to meet us and wants to know if we can come back tomorrow.
May 6
Amanda
It’s ten a.m. and we’re back at the White House, though we come in at a different entrance than we did yesterday. Today we’re going to the West Wing. The hallways are narrow, and there are people all over the place. Everybody looks like they are in a hurry. We stop for a minute outside the Oval Office and peek in, but it’s empty. I feel like I am on a movie set.
We’re escorted to a little seating area to wait for the vice president and I ask to use the ladies’ room. When I come out, I walk around a corner and whoa! I come face-to-face with President Obama, who’s talking to Gina and Beth. It’s really him! He is holding out his hand and he knows my name.
“Hello, Amanda,” he says. “I heard you were coming to meet the vice president, and I wanted to make sure I had a chance to say hello. I want to tell you how proud I am of you, and that it’s such an honor to meet you.”
Then he asks, “Do you have time to take a picture?”
It’s a funny question, since he’s the busy one, but I know he is just being nice.
We pose for a few photos with the president and vice president. And then he is off, saying, “I’ve gotta go deal with this Ukraine thing.” He’s making a joke, but it reminds us of exactly where we are.
The vice president asks us to sit down and then sits forward in his chair, looking at Gina and then me, focusing in hard, like we’re the only people in the world. “I can’t begin to imagine what you went through,” he says. “Nobody can begin to imagine what that was like.” He tells us about a terrible accident in 1972 that killed his wife and daughter. His eyes are filling with tears, and we’re all starting to cry, too.
“I didn’t have the courage to deal with it,” he says. “I just kind of quit. I didn’t have the strength to confront it.” He leans in close and looks me right in the eyes: “Like you do.” Then he turns to Gina: “And you do.”
I think to myself that it’s amazing how he got over his pain and accomplished so much. If he can do it, so can I. He was twenty-nine when that accident happened, and I’m twenty-eight. I have a new life ahead. And he’s right: After what I’ve been through, I can face anything. He’s not afraid to cry, and I don’t have to be either.
We talk for about forty-five minutes, and the vice president says he has to go, but he wants to treat us to lunch. So one of his aides escorts us to the White House Mess, which is not a mess at all. It’s a fancy dining room in the basement. It’s busy at lunchtime, and there are a couple of senators eating at the next table. I’m taking pictures of everything, including the presidential seal pressed into the butter—who thinks of something like that?
The room is so pretty, and we laugh and joke and sip bubbly water from crystal glasses, eating club sandwiches with white linen napkins.
Gina
The ballroom at the Ritz is absolutely huge.
More than five hundred people are sitting at round tables for the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children’s dinner, all dressed in suits and fancy dresses. We’re at a table near the front, listening to speakers, including two teenagers who helped rescue a little girl abducted by some creep in a van in Pennsylvania. I wish they had been around when we were taken.
We go onstage last, and John Walsh, the host of America’s Most Wanted, whose son was kidnapped and murdered, introduces us. I’m so nervous. Amanda has a little speech written and she’s been practicing it. I have a few ideas about what I want to say, but I haven’t written anything down. I don’t know if I’ll be able to speak when I get up onstage. I have never spoken in public. I feel a little sick with nerves.
John Walsh finally says our names, and we step toward the microphone, with our families right behind us. I feel my heart banging in my chest.
Amanda goes first.
“It is really special to be here with Gina and our families. It means more than you’ll ever know.”
She starts tearing up and stops for a moment, then keeps going:
“I want to thank the center for everything they’ve done and continue to do—not just for us, but for all the missing kids and their families. If I could say only one thing, it would be this: Never give up hope, because miracles do happen!”
Now it’s my turn. I am thinking I probably should just say “thank you,” but at the microphone more words come out:
“Always believe in hope, even thou
gh sometimes it is hard to believe in hope. Just pray to God, and God will give you that hope.”
I did it!
Everyone is standing, cheering and applauding for us. It’s amazing. Amanda and I look at each other, and she smiles at me. I feel so alive.
Epilogue: Learning from Cleveland
The Cleveland case prompted the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children to convene its first-ever summit on long-term missing children.
In April 2014, nearly two hundred investigators, pediatricians, anthropologists, medical examiners, behavioral scientists, and others involved in missing-children cases gathered outside Washington to consider the question: “Are we doing enough?”
The officials noted that an increasing number of long-term missing children were being found alive, including in recent years Jaycee Dugard and Elizabeth Smart. But they also observed that none of those cases had been solved directly because of traditional police investigations into their disappearances. Amanda, Gina, and Michelle escaped on their own. Dugard was found when police became suspicious of her abductor for a completely unrelated matter. Smart was found when a viewer of America’s Most Wanted recognized her abductor from a suspect composite made by Smart’s sister.
About four hundred thousand children a year are reported missing in the United States. Most of them turn out to be runaways, and others are taken by family members in custody disputes. Those situations can result in violence to children. A stranger abduction, the stereotypical classical kidnapping, is more rare but there are still about one hundred cases a year. That means that every three or four days a child is kidnapped somewhere in America.
In cases where children have been abducted by strangers, the longer they are missing, the greater the likelihood that they are not alive. However, the center is stressing to law enforcement that, contrary to conventional wisdom, many long-term missing children may still be alive.
One young woman still missing is Ashley Summers, who was fourteen when she disappeared in July 2007, less than a mile from where Amanda and Gina were taken.
For years Amanda’s and Gina’s photos were shown alongside Ashley’s, on “missing” posters, on the big screen at the Cleveland Cavaliers game, and on The Oprah Winfrey Show.
On the day Amanda and Gina escaped, Ashley’s mother, Jennifer, heard that a third woman had escaped with them and she prayed it was her daughter. She frantically called Jen Meyers at the FBI, who broke the bad news.
One morning in September 2014, Amanda walked into the bagel shop where Jennifer Summers works. They didn’t know each other, but Jennifer recognized Amanda immediately from having seen her on TV. She was struck by how Amanda, free after all those years, looked so radiant and happy.
And she wondered: When will we find Ashley?
2015
Amanda
Jocelyn now attends a regular school and has her own little desk, just like all the other kids. She loves school, and when she comes home she tells me the names of all her new friends and what they did at recess and circle time.
I still worry what others kids will say to her. Before she walked into a big classroom after all those years of being homeschooled, I asked my child psychologist to help me come up with the best way to explain to her more about her father. I didn’t want a stranger to be the first one to tell her things she didn’t know—or worse, to tell her their version of what happened before she could hear it from me.
I did tell Joce that her father had died, but not much else, and she never asked. I think that deep down she knew there were things she didn’t really want to hear. She sees people stop me in the grocery store and ask, “Are you Amanda Berry?” and she saw my picture on the cover of People magazine, and all she says is, “Mom, you’re famous!” but never asks why.
Before her first day of the second grade I told her that her daddy had a mental illness that caused him to do bad things. I told her that some people are sick in the stomach, and that Daddy was sick in his mind, and that was why he took me away from my family. For many years nobody knew if I was alive or not, and that is why people are now so happy to see me. And I also told her that he loved her very much. Her response was to hug me and tell me that everything would be okay.
Thanks to Joce, I also have new friends. I love her teacher, and we hang out sometimes. Joce loves her, too, and tells me, “You are my first favorite teacher, and she is my second favorite teacher.” That makes me smile.
Joce has a best friend at school, and her mom and I have also become friends. We all went to a Cavaliers game and saw LeBron James. It’s exciting to see him back in Cleveland. This city has so many great people, and they deserve some good news!
When there is a knock at my door on this quiet street, it’s usually Joe Wooley, the son of my lawyer, Jim Wooley. Joe is a medical student who is about my age, and he gets me. He is funny and makes me laugh. We never talk about the past but about what’s happening today and what we are planning for tomorrow. He’s always fixing something in the house, or putting up the Christmas tree, or assembling a trampoline for Jocelyn. Once he came with his girlfriend, and they played with Jocelyn for hours.
When I see flyers of missing children that come with the ads in the newspaper, I memorize what the boy or girl looks like and focus on some feature that would not change with age. I think we all need to do more for missing children. Many people drive by a billboard with a missing kid’s photo or walk by a flyer on a store door and don’t really even pay attention to them.
When the police first came to my house, my mom was sure I had been kidnapped, but they didn’t take her seriously. That’s just wrong. Even if a lot of teens do run away, when a mother says her kid is in trouble, the police should listen and not tell her they know better. As the years dragged on, most people thought I was dead. So why should there be an ongoing all-out investigation, especially when bank robberies and other crimes occur every day? Why spend the time? I am why. Gina and Michelle are why.
I spend a lot of time being grateful. Especially to all the kind people, many I don’t even know, who have helped me. I am grateful that every day I see Beth, Teddy, and their kids. Beth hasn’t been well, and I am grateful to be able to help take care of her now. The Courage Fund gave me enough money to buy her a new car that is big enough for all seven of us. Her old car broke down all the time, and it’s great to be able to solve that problem for her. I take her to doctors’ appointments and I help out with her kids when she isn’t strong enough. I can never, ever pay her back for all she did while I was gone, but I am going to spend the rest of my life trying.
I think a lot about the rest of my life, and I still don’t know what it’s going to look like. Now that Jocelyn is in school, I need to get working on my high school diploma. I want to get a job, hopefully doing something that will help other people. Maybe I can get some training so that I can become some kind of counselor.
I have noticed something interesting about myself over the past year: I’m becoming less afraid of life. Before I was taken, I didn’t even go to school dances. I stayed in my safe zone and was afraid to try new things. Now I push myself. I was terrified about getting on an airplane, but I did and had a wonderful trip to Washington. I pushed myself to get my driver’s license and now I love the freedom of picking up the car keys and, without telling anybody, walking out the door and driving anywhere I want.
One of these days maybe Joce and I will get in the car and go to New York. I’ve always wanted to see it after all those years watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade, first with my mom and then when I was locked inside Seymour Avenue. New York has always been this magical place that just existed on TV. Now it’s not a dream anymore, it’s a destination.
I can get there.
Gina
I recently got my first job and love it. I work in a restaurant. I walked into the place not long after I got out of Seymour Avenue and just got a good feeling there. So m
onths later I went back, filled out an application, and right after my interview they made me a hostess seating people. I answer the phones, too. Every time I walk in the door of the restaurant I’m excited. My boss is great, and it’s nice to meet new people. If any customers have recognized me they haven’t said anything.
I was also able to move out of my old neighborhood and buy a house in the Cleveland suburbs. I’m glad I was able to do that for my family. We have a yard now for Lala and our other dog, Oreo, and my mom has room to plant a garden. She has always wanted to grow her own tomatoes and cucumbers.
The new house has two entrances, and I live on the side that’s like an in-law suite. Everyone else—my parents, my brother, my sister, and her two kids—are on the main side of the house. We eat together, and I hang out over there all the time, but I also can escape when my nieces get too loud and crazy. For the first time in my life, I have my own bedroom and bathroom. In my old house we had one bathroom for seven people, so someone was always yelling at someone else to hurry up. Now we have three and a half bathrooms! I feel lucky.
I’ve reconnected with Chrissy, too. She’s busy with a boyfriend and a job and she lives on the opposite side of Cleveland now, but we send funny texts to each other. People ask me what I think of men, and I say my dad and my brother are great and I would like to meet a wonderful guy someday and have kids. But for now most of my time is spent studying for my high school diploma and working.
Every day I try to keep thinking about now and next, and not about the past. I am trying new things and going new places that make me feel like I have a fresh start on life. Some days it’s easy. Others, not.
I used to blame everybody for what happened to me. I blamed Arlene and Arlene’s mother for not figuring out who kidnapped us. I blamed the people who came into that house and didn’t figure out that we were there. I thought the neighbors on Seymour were so dumb for not realizing what was going on. I was upset that the police and FBI couldn’t find me. It even got to the point where I was mad at my own family, because they were living their lives while I was stuck. But I don’t think like that at all anymore. I know that nobody is to blame for this except Ariel Castro. Not me, not my family, not anybody else. Just one very bad man.
