It’s been eight weeks since Tsering “Dolma” Wangyal, of Skokie, has gone missing, but her family, friends, and the larger Tibetan community in Evanston are continuing the search for their beloved elder.
About 100 people participated in a candlelight vigil in James Park in Evanston on Monday evening to motivate the group in their search for Dolma. Her daughter, Tenzin Wangyal, said, “I just feel like my gut says she’s somewhere. All her life, she has been a really strong person, so I feel like I would know.”
According to Skokie police, Dolma, 82, was last seen on July 15 at the Levy Senior Center at 300 Dodge Avenue in Evanston. Tenzin and members of the Tibetan Alliance of Chicago, based in Evanston, have searched every day for two months, posting signs and soliciting information from hospitals and shelters as far as Joliet in their search of Dolma. The group also has a website with more information on the search’s updates.
“I go between hope and grief,” Tenzin said at the vigil. “My mom is one of the strongest women I know. I know everyone feels the same way about their mom, but she really is one of the strongest women I know. She had a very difficult childhood, losing her parents early in life and having to work to provide for herself.”
Tenzin also reminisced on the good times she had with her mother. “Our last visit to Cancun was where she experienced a piña colada for the first time in her life,” Tenzin said. “She didn’t drink, and she only drank because I told her it’s an all-inclusive resort, and we’ve already paid for the drinks, so that was the girl math that she did,” Tenzin said with a giggle.
Last week, Skokie police reported that a body was found in the North Shore Channel in the 8600 block of McCormick Boulevard. Before the body was reported as being a man’s body, and later identified as that of 45-year-old Roland Gross of Chicago by the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office, Tenzin said she felt her heart sink with the possibility that her mother could have been the person found by police. She said the body’s discovery also motivated her to keep looking for her mother and to inform the general public that Dolma is still yet to be found.
Skokie police officers and Skokie Mayor George Van Dusen were present to show solidarity with the community.
“My plea to you this evening: If you know anything, however small you think it is, please report it to the police,” Van Dusen said. “We want to bring her (Dolma) home, so please keep up the effort. We will find her, and we will reunite her with her family.”
Tseten Porjee, president of the Tibetan Alliance of Chicago, said so many people came to the vigil because they felt a connection to Dolma. “Everybody in the community calls her Ammala — Ammala is mother. So they have motherly feeling. We miss her,” Porjee said.
Norbu Samphel, the alliance’s prayer leader, led a prayer dedicated to the Hindu goddess of compassion, Tara Devi.
“She is the most sweet, quick in helping others,” Samphel said. “Wherever there is any need of help, she right away available there… We have these candles, in Tibet we say candles are the dispellers of darkness. Wherever there is darkness, if there is a light, if there is a candle, it will illuminate the situation and circumstances of all that.”
