38 years.

Casie Ellison
Dec 28, 2025
3 min read

Here it is.

Today.

Another year has passed.

38 years.

13870 days.

333108 hours.

A lifetime.

I just turned 39, last month, and she died one week before her 21st birthday.

-My mother was twenty years old.

My mother was twenty years old when she was murdered.

I’ve lived over a decade longer than she ever got to.

And I think about her every day.

I think about her more than I ever talk about.

More than I ever tell anybody.

I’ve cried harder for her this past year than I’ve ever done.

I miss her hard.

So I’ll cry.

Sometimes It seems as if I can’t stop crying.

I’ll let it all out, but I try not to sit in it.

I try so hard to be strong, but no one seems to realize how weak it truly makes me

How much I long for motherly companionship

I’d give anything to pick up the phone and have a mother to fight with.

I’ve give anything to let go of some of this pain.

no matter how many days go by, where I feel like I’ve left something.

-like something is missing from my life.

I take comfort in knowing, this year- she’s with her momma. They’re together celebrating. I hope they’re cheering me on.

My Granny passed way, 6 years ago, without knowing who murdered her daughter, my mother.

I can hardly believe it’s been this long

I watched my granny wither away from the luster of life, and the desire to live. She was covered in salt from bitterness, and grief. Begging to die faster.

Sometimes it feels like my entire soul is burning, engulfed on fire. It doesn’t matter how bad it hurts or how long or loud I scream - there’s no one that can hear me. No one can see the flames.

Sometimes, I want to lay in bed and sleep

I want to sleep and never wake up

But I can’t do that-

I refuse to. I saw what that does, and I don’t want that. Even though sometimes it feels like I do.

I am surrounded by love, and I’ll try not to give up hope.

I hope that one day, my Mother’s murder will be solved. I hope to move on, and I want the peace and closure for my family.

I know my life would be completely different, if she were still here.

I’d be a different person.

So many people.. would be different people.

Losing her, was like a meteor punched the earth. It made a dent in perfection, and nothing was the way it used to be.

No one was the way they were.

It was a crater. A void.

A black hole that everyone was forced to ignore, and then became accustomed to.

It's grown bigger and stronger and it’s taken happiness.

It’s vacuumed the will to survive.

I watched it take the life of the hierarchy. I’ve watched it shrink the gold from the sun.

I’ve held the hands of my grandmother. Who’s paper-thin skin couldn’t hide her black veins. I saw her skeleton climbing an endless mountain, for answers she would never find.

Three decades of her life, she dedicated to making it to the part where it made sense.

She died before she made it.

And it never did.

It never has.

But I believe, in my heart, they’re together. And they’re together, watching over me.

I’ve got too many people on the other side to fail. I imagine they’ve never left me, even though they’re not here anymore.

You have to, right? Isn’t that what heaven is… and I believe one day, I’ll see them again.

Until then,

I’m going to give them a great show to watch.

if you know anything about the murder of Melissa "Missy Taylor " Ellison, please call Jacksonville Crime Stoppers.

1-866-845-TIPS (8477)

if you know something, say something.