"With the media there is truth and then there is perception."
- Tom Cruise
A beautiful angel with hazel eyes and a smile to light up a room, a 3-year old whose life has so much promise, a laugh to melt your heart, and a story that has captivated a nation.
Caylee Marie Anthony is more than just a flyer; she is a daughter; a granddaughter; a niece; and a great-granddaughter. She is a friend and most importantly, Caylee Marie is a person that not only has outside beauty but the inside characteristics are just as beautiful!
Caylee Marie loves playing with her two dogs, she loves green beans and iced animal crackers, with a sippy cup filled with apple juice in one hand, you may see Caylee clinching her other hand, she is a child who writes with her left hand but can throw a fast pitch with both hands. Caylee loves being outside; whether at a beach or at the park, this little tyke is an outdoors girl! In her quiet times she loves watching her favorite shows on television and hanging with her mama and grandparents. When it's time to clean, a vacuum in hand and her little legs dancing to the beat, she's a great help to have around the house! She is well educated for her age; she can count to 45 in Spanish, knows her full name, and can sing many nursery rhymes including Biblical ones.
Caylee Marie is her own person; she is more than just a flyer. Caylee is a person who deserves the best the world has to offer. She is a little girl who towers over children her own age, approximately 3 ½-4 ½ feet tall, she is potty trained and who could be seen eating canned corn from her bare hands and not with the utensils provided to her. She loves to read, color, and sing. Caylee Marie is a beautiful soul inside and out. A person that many were sparked by her characteristics and beauty.
Sparked by her character, seen in public on July 2,15, 17,20 to name a few. Witnesses that were unaware she was missing when they met, spoke, and interacted with her in their travels. Sparked by the character of an angel that when news broke she was missing they did what they felt was the right thing to do; they called the Orange County Sheriff's Department Tipline and filed what they thought was an official report and sighting. After numerous attempts, the persistence of their nature they continued to fight and called the next in line, the Help Find Caylee Search Team working with her grandparents.
So here we are, five months later, is there hope? YES, we have the hope and belief our angel is still with us! Do we believe these witnesses? YES, we sure do; the descriptions and interactions they describe only the family could explain, until now.
So, for those that ask us to stop hanging onto lost dreams, let me remind you, Caylee Marie is more than just a flyer, she is a beautiful little girl that did not ask to be a poster child, she did not ask to be lost, she did not have a choice with the circumstances that we are dealing with, all she asks now is that we don't give up and we continue to HOPE!
Would you give up on your own child? Then don't ask this family to give up on theirs. Caylee Marie, more than a flyer - she is a person who is loved very much and a child who doesn't deserve to be written off and forgotten. Einstein once said, "in the middle of difficulty lies opportunity." We are in a very difficult place, it's a complicated case and two lives are at stake, but within this difficult situation we see an opportunity of HOPE and our belief and the tips we believe are true will continue to lead us to a positive conclusion, so no matter what side of the fence you are on, we all agree Caylee Marie needs to come home. She is more than a flyer; her name is Caylee Marie Anthony!
-Michelle A. Bart © 2008