On Tuesday morning, December 21, you could almost hear the sound of 100,000 hearts breaking. At about ten o’clock, the news made the rounds in homes, schools and workplaces across Lycoming County: "They found Logan. He didn’t make it."
How unutterably sad.
We all knew something was wrong late Saturday afternoon. We heard the helicopters circling overhead; saw the lights ablaze at the Little League complex. If you happened to be driving in South Williamsport, the streets were staked out with police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances, as if establishing a perimeter. Was it a huge vehicle accident on Route 15? A chemical spill? A drill or simulation, preparing for a terrorist attack? A dangerous convict escaped from prison?
It was a little boy lost.
But this was a 9-year-old boy in the most vulnerable, heart-wrenching situation- a mental disability that made it impossible for him to call out to his would-be rescuers, impossible to seek a stranger’s help, impossible to reason a way to find the road, follow the lights of the city, leave a trail, or send up a signal.
By Sunday morning, everyone knew Logan was missing. Thousands prayed in churches, hundreds volunteered to join the search. The daylight hours were precious and few and the temperature was dropping like a rock. The volunteers pulled their coats more tightly around them and kept going. Those outside canvassing the neighborhoods were handed cookies and hot coffee from those inside.
Darkness came and still no good news. We who were safe in our warm homes heard the heater kick on for the second time in fifteen minutes, realizing suddenly how horribly cold it had become, and we began to weigh the odds, hoping and praying for a miracle.
The searchers found Logan on Tuesday morning, after a day and a night of the bitterest cold of the year. How very sad. Those who knew and loved Logan have their own grief to deal with and nothing us outsiders can say or do will fix it. The rest of us, who only knew Logan as the Little Boy Lost, have one small shred of comfort.
It is this: the measure of any society is how it treats the weakest and most vulnerable within it. ...
I have an elderly uncle who often declares that people are "rotten, just rotten to the core." I’ve tried to change his mind. I think people can be, and frequently are, splendid. When crunch time comes, people rise.
People rose.
Families generally have plans on the Sunday before Christmas, sometimes engrained in tradition. Hundreds of volunteers missed the Sunday school pageants, church suppers, baking, or tree-trimming they’d been planning, to instead spend two days or two nights in the paralyzing cold, knocking on doors, canvassing neighborhoods, searching the woods. Those who could, did. Those who couldn’t, prayed.
…Local supermarkets and restaurants brought food to the command center to feed the volunteers. Women dug into their freezers and handed over Christmas cookies and baked goods. First Ward Fire Co. helpers kept the coffee coming. Help arrived from outside Lycoming County, too. Search and rescue teams from Virginia, Maryland, and Boston came. Donuts were sent from Wilkes-Barre. Forestry workers came from all over the state. The call went out and people stepped up.
This is the one thing, perhaps the one, tiny grain of good to come out of such a sad loss. We in Lycoming County now know who we are. We take care of each other, especially the most helpless among us. We’d do anything and everything to save one Little Boy Lost. Perhaps, to us outsiders, this is Logan’s Legacy.
Logan left a powerful message to the community
Sun-Gazette Editor
(As appearing in the Thursday, December 23, 2004 edition of the Williamsport Sun-Gazette)
When Logan Mitcheltree was discovered missing Saturday afternoon, the South Williamsport community and its neighbors joined together in a mission- to find Logan alive.
Hundreds of volunteers combed Logan’s neighborhood, the municipality and the hills surrounding it. In an age when we worry about prejudices toward people based on race, religion and handicaps, Logan’s autism did nothing to mute the effort of volunteers, police, fire and other emergency personnel.
They searched everywhere for Logan on what may turn out to be among the three most bitterly cold days and nights of the next three months.
When Logan’s lifeless body was found Tuesday, there was a collective feeling of anguish, frustration, failure and sadness.
All those emotions make sense.
But during times of grief, when we all ask why something so tragic happens, it is helpful to look at the positive message beneath the surface, even if that message doesn’t entirely answer the question.
Logan, who could not speak, left a very loud message to anyone who was listening.
He showed that communities can still care, people can still come together for a cause. We can still feel. We can still bare our hearts. And it’s very worth it to do so.
Despite the outcome in the search for Logan, we can feel good about the humanity Logan brought out in everyone over the past few days.
As for the Mitcheltree family, a community's thoughts and prayers go out to them. During this time of grief it may help them to know they can be proud of Logan, for he left a message more powerful than most of us are able to leave.
Logan, I miss you baby! I would do anything plus more to have you and daddy back by my side. I hope you guys are enjoying it up there without all the Mitcheltree girls nagging you! lol thanks for always being there for me to cry with or just blabber on and on about whatever. you were the only person i'll ever let get away with ANYTHING! i kno the purses in heaven are probably the best, but please save some cute ones for me! haha I love you pookie daniel!
~Logan Daniel Mitcheltree 11/10/95-12/18/04 : You changed a lot of peoples lives little guy!~
