I think he’s dead. I don’t know for sure. I hope I’m wrong. What I do know is that he is missing. Not knowing what has happened to my friend has me in a quandary, so perhaps you’ll understand if I switch between speaking of him in the present and past tense.
In the years since we’ve been platonic friends, Kenny G – my nickname for him – rarely missed sending me a card for my birthday, Christmas, and other special occasions; or phoning me every few weeks just to keep in touch. For him not to send a Christmas Card or call me last month to say “Happy New Year!” was very unusual.
Although we attended the same high school — he was a few years ahead of me — and grew up blocks apart, we never actually met until 21 years ago; and over time we learned that we knew some of the same people from school and the old neighborhood.
The last time I saw Kenny G was a few weeks after his birthday last October, when he stopped by my home and visited for about half-an-hour with my beau and me. Before leaving he hugged me, shook hands with him, and said “See ya’ later.” to us. That was four months ago. Since then I have left several messages on his phone — the calls went straight to voice mail — and sent notes to his last known address, but received no reply.
Recently, while scrolling through my cell phone messages I discovered that on November 12th Kenny left a message thanking me for mailing him a newspaper clipping about the demise of an old school radio DJ whom we both admired.
Kenny G, a 67 year old army veteran was a construction worker until a back injury forced him to give up that job and he began driving a taxicab practically 24/7. The effects of eating irregularly and not exercising greatly affected his health, and over the years I have seen his previously 5 foot 9, medium-sized frame shrink to a weight of about 100 pounds and his spine now curves forward like an open parenthesis. He walks at a snail’s pace, but his mind is as sharp as ever. Due to lack of health insurance and unaffordable dental care most of his teeth are gone, but the once attractive fellow with the walnut complexion is an honorable man of good character who, despite hard times, maintains a positive attitude and a million dollar personality.
I have searched numerous times for him on the Internet, and in newspaper death notices and obituaries; and while I have found some obits for people with the same name, either the birth date or other available details indicate that the subject is not the person I am seeking. Finding nothing on him could be good news – or a bad thing; the latter, because sometimes family members do not publish anything about their deceased relatives.
It is probably a far-fetched idea, but I think there ought to be a national database where people can search for adults with whom they have lost touch to learn whether that person is deceased. I am aware of the SSDI (Social Security Death Index). It is a weekly updated, death master file – listing over 89 million deceased individuals in the United States with social security numbers, whose deaths were reported to the SSA. But how many of us know our friends’ social security numbers? As in my situation with Kenny G, sometimes we don’t even know our friends’ relatives or close friends.
About eleven years ago, another close friend of mine visited me on a Saturday, two days before he was scheduled to have minor surgery and promised to phone me after the operation. A couple of days went by and I heard nothing from him, but I figured it was because he was still recovering and wasn’t up to phone calls or visitors. Three weeks later, I learned from a neighbor — who knew my friend’s sister – that my friend had died of a staph infection within days following his surgery, and was already buried when I learned of his death.
Yet another friend was suddenly hospitalized about three years ago, with a terminal illness. I visited her in the ICU during her last days. One evening her grown son knocked on my door and when I opened the door he burst into tears; delivering an unspoken message that she was gone. A couple of days later when I inquired about funeral arrangements, I learned that prior to her death she had told her family that she did not want a funeral or a memorial service. Upon her death she was immediately cremated. No service. No death notice in the newspaper. No nothing.
One of the sad uncertainties of life is that we have no way of knowing when we say goodbye or so long to someone whether it is a temporary departure or a final farewell.
Every day I have more empathy for people who I see on TV discussing a missing or lost loved one, and I fully understand when they say “I need closure.” Not knowing what has happened to someone you care about is an albatross on the mind and an unrelenting heartache.
I hope that Kenny G just broke his pattern, although it would be unlike him. I pray that he is alive and well somewhere, and that one day he will phone or stop by and explain why we have not heard from him. But my intuition tells me that, all things considered, the reason he has not contacted us in over 4 months is beyond his control. Life is complicated. One minute you can be laughing and joking with someone and the next ….
In her book Wouldn’t Take Nothing For My Journey Now, Maya Angelou eloquently expresses my deepest feelings: “I can accept the idea of my own demise, but I am unable to accept the death of anyone else. I find it impossible to let a friend or relative go into that country of no return. Disbelief becomes my close companion, and anger follows in its wake . . . I answer the heroic question, ‘Death, where is thy sting?’ with ‘It is here in my heart and mind and memories.’ ”