Missing

Often I find myself looking for something that has seemingly disappeared. My extra set of car keys has been missing for quite some time. Sometimes my cell phone disappears and I have to call myself and follow the ring. I’ve found that the little button my regular phone that beeps to locate where the handset has been left is very handy. It is reassuring to me that they actually put the button on the phone indicating that others have lost their phone also. Receipts disappear, but only the ones I need to return something I have purchased in haste or error. I can’t even imagine how many socks have disappeared in my lifetime, only one of a kind, never a pair. I’ve actually been harboring one great black leather boot for a couple of years sure that the partner will show up somewhere. Just a few weeks ago, I had a vest come up missing. After I had written it off as something not worthy of expending worry energy over, it suddenly appeared in my daughter’s closet eight miles away. Over the years, I have shopped early for Christmas and hidden the gifts so well that I still haven’t found them. I’ve come to expect things to disappear but what is really frustrating is putting something in the “perfect” place so I’ll know where it is and forgetting where that place is.

Beyond all the things that have disappeared I wonder about people who disappear. I’ve had the “normal” disappearances of people I have loved and lost in death, a brother, parents, friends. And there are those people who have disappeared from my life because of moving, either myself or them, but I still think of them from time to time. I think about Janice, my neighborhood childhood friend, with whom I shared a best friends forever (now BFF) pledge and have never seen again in 47 years. I think about Carol, my summer cottage constant companion. One would think the sheer craziness of summer lake living with little parental supervision would have sealed us together for a lifetime. And I think about Gayle for whom I was matron of honor. She and her husband moved to Florida years ago and while we exchanged Christmas cards for many years, they have stopped and I’ve lost her address and have been unable to find it. It is one of the things that has disappeared. Friends, neighbors and co-workers have all seemingly disappeared into thin air over the years.

More difficult to understand are the people who have disappeared not necessarily because of a physical move but more of a moving-on. Life circumstances sometimes change relationships, sometimes understandably, sometimes not. In the course of divorce and my move, my ex-husband “got custody” of some friends. Though supportive to me at the time of the divorce, I miss my close friend Linda. I know she is now a friend of the new wife and the Christmas cards have stopped arriving. Probably the most painful disappearance of a friend is Liz. She lived in the city I moved from, only three hours away. We were close for some time after I moved, she supporting me in my divorce and I supporting her in her husband’s death. But at sometime about twelve years ago it all changed. She stopped calling, stopped returning calls and eventually stopped sending Christmas cards. I didn’t understand and still don’t today. Over the years I have sent her “thinking of you” cards and even addressed the issue three years ago with a written apology for anything I may have done or said to hurt her. I told her how much I missed her and heard nothing in return. I’ve even told people I know who live in the same city to tell her I said hello but Liz has disappeared.

When I look out my kitchen window, I see a house where an entire family disappeared several months ago. Curtains hang at the windows but no lights shine through at night. There were no Christmas lights. Santa didn’t come. The back door of the garage blew open at some point and serves as a testament to the aching emptiness of the home. They weren’t particularly friendly neighbors, especially the mother. But the father was friendlier and even helped me with something heavy in the yard a couple of times. And the boys would sheepishly come into my yard to retrieve their basketball, even though I always assured them it was okay. When I drive by, I see a “for sale” sign on the front lawn but I never saw them leave. I just noticed the lights had gone out and the people were missing. And I wonder.

I understand missing things and yet I may be frustrated in their disappearance. I don’t understand people disappearing in the same way. Those who have disappeared in death remain in my memories and I continue to wonder about the other missing people in my life. But most difficult to understand are those who disappear out of circumstance or choice rather than distance. The hole left inside me by a missing friend never really is filled by a new friend. While my heart expands to encompass new friends, the space that had been allocated to the other remains unfilled and wondering.