I can see him still. Sixteen years old, bright smile, perspiration on his forehead, shooting hoops all afternoon. That warm July Monday of 1995, Brian Kelvin Andrewin waved at his friends and said the most ordinary words in the world: “I’m going home”.
The last time anyone saw him.
His mother waited for the slam of the main door; he would yell, “I’m hungry,” and bang his sneakers on the floor in the hallway. None of it ever came. The house was way too quiet. It’s been silent for thirty years now.
When she reported it to the police, they said, “Do not worry. He’s a runaway.” Just like that. A Black teenager walking home in Chicago did not raise alarms back then. It barely raised an eyebrow.
I was also a kid from the 90s. I am sure I knew how the whole attention of the world disappeared fast on those missing kids whose resemblance was somewhat like that of Brian. The posters have already become yellower, fading on telephone poles, while other faces stayed on the news every night. It even pained my stomach back then; it hurts worse now.
Eight years: It took the police eight years to call him a missing endangered child instead of the boy who chose to leave. Eight years when leads would die, and witnesses would forget events while his mother cried herself to sleep, wondering if her baby was cold, scared, or already gone.
He stood at a height of 5’8 weighing 135 pounds, with two weeks from being seventeen. He loved basketball more than anything. His laugh was loud. His hug could turn a bad day right. That someone took all that away, now walking what should have been a ten-minute trek.
Sometimes, I turn to his age-progressed picture, and it crushes me. This is what he would look like at forty-six if he is breathing somewhere, or his family imagines this face when they visit his empty room, which no one has the heart to change.
Thirty birthdays now without him. Thirty empty Christmases. Thirty years of his mother picking up the phone, hoping this is the call that brings her son home, even if only to bury him.
Someone out there had seen him walk away from that court. Someone heard his voice that day. Does someone know if he had gotten into a car, had been forced, if he cried out, and no one helped? That person has carried this secret for three decades, while a mother’s heart has slowly shattered.
Still, every July 10, light a candle. They still check the mailbox for miracles. They still search for any possible hint or clue on the Internet: please don’t let him be forgotten.
If you lived in that neighborhood in 1995 Chicago, if you played ball with him, passed a skinny kid walking alone that evening, or even heard a rumor you brushed off, you should call now. One memory could end thirty years of torture.
Chicago Police Special Victims Unit: 312-747-5789
National Center for Missing & Exploited Children: 1-800-843-5678
You may remain anonymous. You can still do what is right.
He has to go home. His mother must hold him again, even if it is only to say goodbye.
This pain is too heavy to carry alone for thirty years. Bring back what is left of Brian. You may also be interested in: Beresford Community Mourns the Loss of 8th Grader Camdyn Meester
