LDL. Six Months Without Answers: Community Remembers 8-Year-Old Cile Steward, the Sole Camper Still Missing After the Hill Country Flood

Six months ago, a flood tore through the Hill Country and changed everything in a matter of minutes.

Families who sent their children off to camp expecting ordinary summer memories were suddenly pulled into an unthinkable reality—phone calls in the dark, frantic searching, and a kind of fear that doesn’t fit into words. In the days that followed, many questions found painful clarity. Some children were located. Some families began the long process of grieving with certainty.

But for one family, the story is still suspended in the hardest place imaginable.

Today marks six months since 8-year-old Cile Steward was taken in the flood—and she remains the sole camper still missing.

For her parents, Cece and Will, time has not delivered closure. It has only deepened the same unanswered ache: the absence of their little girl, and the quiet dread of not knowing what they are supposed to do with love that has nowhere to land.

“Six Months of Hope and Heartbreak in the Same Breath”

People often say that time heals. Families like Cile’s will tell you time doesn’t heal what it cannot finish.

When a child is missing, grief becomes complicated. There is sorrow, but it’s tangled with hope. There is acceptance, but it’s interrupted by “what if.” There is a longing to move forward, but also a feeling that moving forward is a betrayal—because how do you move forward when you don’t have your child?

For Cece and Will, six months has meant waking up each morning with the same question sitting on their chest. It has meant going to sleep at night without an answer. It has meant living through birthdays, holidays, school seasons, and everyday moments that continue for the world—but feel paused in their home.

And it has meant continuing to ask for the moment no family should ever have to ask for:

The chance to bring their daughter home.

A Little Girl, Not a Headline

In tragedies that gather public attention, a child’s name can become a story—shared, reposted, summarized. But to the people who love them, they are never a headline.

They are a laugh. A voice in the other room. A favorite snack. A bedtime routine. A pair of shoes by the door. A drawing on the fridge. A small hand reaching for yours without thinking.

That’s why it matters to say her name plainly and gently:

Cile.

Not as a symbol. Not as a statistic. But as a child who is deeply loved—and who is still missing.

What It Means to “Not Have Closure”

Closure is one of those words people offer when they don’t know what else to say.

For families of missing children, closure isn’t a concept—it’s a wound left open, day after day. It’s grief that can’t settle because the final truth hasn’t arrived. It’s mourning that can’t fully begin because hope refuses to die. It’s a heart that keeps listening for footsteps that may never come.

Cece and Will have carried that for half a year.

And even for those outside the family, six months is long enough for attention to drift—long enough for daily life to reclaim people’s focus. That’s why this milestone matters. Not to reopen wounds, but to remind everyone:

Cile has not been forgotten.

How the Community Can Honor Cile Today

On anniversaries like this, families often aren’t asking for dramatic gestures. They’re asking for something simpler and more human:

To remember.

To speak their child’s name.

To let them know that even if the world has moved on, their child still matters to people beyond their front door.

If you have a moment today, you can honor Cile by:

• Leaving Cece and Will a message of love or remembrance
• Sharing Cile’s name and story respectfully, without speculation
• Praying—for comfort, for strength, and for an answer that brings Cile home
• If you truly believe you have relevant information, contact local authorities or the official search coordinators (without spreading unverified claims online)

Sometimes the most meaningful support is the kind that stays steady after the initial surge of attention fades.

A Different Kind of Missing

A missing child changes a family in a way few can understand.

Parents don’t just miss a person—they miss a future. They miss the next grade, the next haircut, the next holiday photo, the next silly argument, the next ordinary moment that used to feel guaranteed.

And when the missing is tied to a disaster like a flood, the grief is layered with trauma: the suddenness, the violence of nature, the helplessness of not being able to protect your child from something so overwhelming.

Six months later, Cece and Will are still living inside that reality.

Today, We Pause

Today is not about spectacle. It’s about humanity.

It’s about pausing long enough to acknowledge what Cece and Will are still carrying—and to remind them that there are people who haven’t stopped caring, even if they don’t know what to do with that care.

So today, we remember Cile Steward.

We speak her name.

We honor the love that refuses to quit.

And we send Cece and Will what every grieving family needs most on milestones like this:

A reminder that their daughter is not forgotten—and neither are they.

💛 If you have a moment, leave Cece and Will a word of love or remembrance.