Mar
Leave a Candle Lit….
Paul was one of the people whom I had helped put back together. He was a smart, somewhat arrogant young man with an inquisitive mind. Paul had potential. From living in a parking lot to taking a position as a computer expert, he had rebuilt his life. Later, he met a woman he came to love, and they married and moved out West. The couple had two children.
A few years later, I got a very strange call. It was Paul. He sounded like someone else. He was fretting over someone whom he considered “evil,” and said he was going to fix the situation. I suspected he was high. That was the last I heard. An attempt to contact his wife failed. They had apparently moved and changed their phone number. We did receive a holiday card from his wife a couple years later, and the children had a different last name. Another attempt to contact her led nowhere. That was 1998 or 1999.
Every so often I go online and look for signs of Paul. So far, nothing. I wonder if he is out there and where he might be. I don’t care what he did or where he is at. He is still welcome here.
I am reminded of a science fiction story about a lost fleet. The space station still sent out a beacon after many years in the slim hope they might make contact.
As a species, one of our great strengths is HOPE. Despite all odds, and maybe because of them, we are willing to hold out a slim tendril of hope when things look dim. In the case of lost or missing friends, it is normal to hold out a shred of hope that they may show up some day. Hope is that “emergency tank” that kicks in when we’ve run out of fuel. Hope keeps us trying and believing when everything around us says that all is lost.
I have an eerie feeling that Paul did something so extreme that his ex-wife changed the children’s last name. Did he hurt someone? Get involved in some kind of crime? Abandon the family and run off with a floozie? The imagination comes up with myriad odd scenarios. Whatever the case, I hope to hear one day that he is safe and well.
Hope tells us that we still have a chance.
