Lost and found

It is just a piece of paper hanging on the wall of the Day Office where I work. A white piece of paper with a picture of a man standing between two teenagers, his arms around their shoulders. I can see their smiles but the faces of the teenage girls are blanked out. The man's face is visible. He's wearing a cowboy hat. Black shirt. Black jeans. He's got a Johnny Cash kind of look, a cocky stance as he smiles, obviously happy to be between his daughters. I know he's their dad. The message on the page tells me. "Has anyone seen this man?" And then, beneath it, "Dad, please call home. We love you."

A simple, heartfelt message. A pain too great to fathom.

It is a story often repeated at the homeless shelter. Mother's call in looking for their sons. Daughters looking for their mothers. Brothers come in search of their twin, wives in search of 'their better halves'.

It is a story that reminds me of what I once did to my daughters. Disappeared. Vanished. Left with no forwarding address.

Hard to imagine. But true.

I look back on that woman who believed so completely that she had no value, no meaning in anyone else's life but the one she was enduring. I feel the pain of those lost souls trying to escape the loving arms reaching out to them, wanting to tell them a simple truth, We love you.

It's hard to hear someone loves you when you believe you are completely unworthy.

The mind cries out. You must escape from the burden of their love, escape from the truth of the hatred burning inside for all that you are, all you've become.

When my daughters were born I entered a sacred trust, a circle of love that could not be broken. At some point in my journey, the responsibility of that love became too great, too hot to touch. I had fallen so far from grace I had to deny the one thing I craved, the one thing I yearned for -- to be connected through that circle of love to the one's I loved more than my own life.

And so, I ran away. Disappeared. Vanished.

I was blessed. I was found before I was erased from this planet. I was found before all I left behind was the painful memory of my journey through hell, a bitter reminder for those who loved me to grapple with, make sense of, understand. In my 'finding' I found the gift of healing, of forgiveness, of love.

At the shelter, sometimes the lost are not found. They pass by and pass away, their lives an untold story never to unfold. Like the young man a volunteer told me about on Saturday. Her husband had befriended him. He was a schizophrenic. Twenty-eight years old. He used to sit on the sidewalk outside the man's office building and panhandle. Her husband would give him coins, buy him coffee and a muffin, sometimes take him for lunch. And then one day, he disappeared. The husband wondered where he'd gone and then continued on with his life. Until a week after his disappearance when the police appeared. The young man had died. An overdose. His story ended. We found your business card amongst his belongings, they told him. You're the only contact name we have. Can you help us connect with his family? The husband knew of a brother, which led to a parent. Thanks for letting us know, they said. They didn't come for the funeral. The volunteer and the husband were the only one's there. Two strangers whose lives had touched briefly, but meaningfully. At least the family knows what happened to him, the husband said. At least they won't have to keep worrying about him.

Sometimes, the lost cannot be found again. Sometimes, there's no one looking for them.

I hope and pray those two daughters find some sign of their father. I pray one day he will find himself on the road of living in love and joy.

Until that time, we continue to do what we do to keep hope alive. For those who are lost and those who are searching for the one's they love in the hope that they will be found before all hope is lost with their passing from this place.