They found your body last night. They recovered it today. Along with your clothes, camping gear and belongings.
Hi love, Are you there? Are you listening?
They found your body last night. They recovered it today.
Along with your clothes, camping gear and belongings.
You went missing October 10th, 2020 and from that day forward my life changed again as I dedicated the next months, every day and hour to helping your family, strangers and unknown to me, find you.
You became like my brother, my best friend.
I ripped into your life to try and find you, to find a glimmer of a hint of where you could have gone.
A person can not just disappear like that can they?
The world is big but it is still quite small. What corner could you possibly have gone to?
JF, a man who I became close friends with, and I spent hours straight scouring through your social media accounts, e-mails, journals, your thoughts, your deep dark secrets, credit card statements, phone bills, getting your SIM card copied so we could get more info, interviewing your friends and colleagues, people that you contacted last. We even went as far as tracking down any stops you made 24 hours prior to your disappearance by visiting stores in the area based off your credit card statements and asking for their camera footage.
We came up with theories, some of them a little more wild than others.
We cried together reading some of the things you wrote.
Sometimes confused we’d jump to Google and see if what you had written meant anything deeper.
We gave our blood, sweat, tears, mental health, our own money as we were so dedicated to bringing you home.
You were a sad person but you had life about you that was beautiful and full of joy and knowing and seeing that made me smile. You appreciated art, making lists of things — I like lists too.
JF and I could tell through your items and words what kind of person you were and we fell in love with the idea of you.
We promised to never give up on finding you one day.
A total stranger.
Someone I have never met once.
I didn’t even know your voice.
So what am I to miss?
What am I to grieve?
You left on your journey to hike through the deep woods of one of our parks up north, you drank one more coffee — well half of it anyway, we found the cup half full in your car.
It’s none of my business but I know in the back of my head the last text messages you sent to your mom, dad and two younger sisters from scrolling through the clone of your phone.
It makes me wonder if your soul regrets the things you said, not that they were bad or anything. But I wonder if you wish you had said one thing more. One thing differently?
You were exactly where we kept looking. Where we kept going back to. You were right there and I am sorry we couldn’t see you. The blizzard hit, the storm covered everything — including you. Preserving your body in it’s icy, cold layers.
You were right there.
I’m sorry we did not see you.
In one of your journal entries you left a song, a song which was the last played song on your Spotify.
I listen to this song quite regularly and even though I did not know you in life, it doesn’t matter. This song speaks enough to who you were, who your soul was. Is.
Erik Satie — Gymnopédie №1
I am listening to it as I finish writing this.
Maybe one day our energies will get to meet and we’ll just know.
Or maybe not.
You are a total stranger to me.
If I close my eyes and just listen to each key stroke, each note being played so beautifully, tragically. I find you there, right in between. A man I did not know causing my heart to cry, feel such pain.
Hearing that they found you left me feeling this sorrow so deep that my chest felt like the inside of a empty watering can. Hollow, quiet, so empty that at a rock drop there would be a dull echo heard for days. I know it.
I’ve had a lump in my throat and a heaviness in my chest at the thought of what you could have gone through in those last moments.
It’s funny how a person you have no connection with can change your life so drastically. I know you changed mine. In a way actually, you saved mine. Ironic.
Thank you.
Wherever your soul is now, whatever adventure you have found yourself in today — I hope you are well. I will find you in the sun, I will find you in the moon and I will especially find you in all of our stars.
Lets meet one day, yeah?
I know for now you will reside in each of the volunteers that dedicated themselves to you and your family.
That part of us will live for you now.
Rest In Peace, love.
Originally published at Goodnight Journal.
