Don't know where to put this, because mostly it was horrifying, heart-wrenchingly anguishing, and days of intense misery. But it ends on a positive, so this is where I'm dropping it.
I know I tend toward the TLDR, so I'll leave out a lot of details and try to make this brief.
I've mentioned before that my brother-in-law is an alcoholic. He's been on the wagon for 7-8 years now. He's not a functional alcoholic. When he drank, life burned down around him, and everyone in his sphere suffered. He's one of my absolutely favorite people. Nobody is funnier, and there is no kinder or gentler spirit. I look forward to the holidays when he comes to stay with us. We share a lot of the same sense of humor and so we like a lot of the same niche things. And because he's worked for a school district in the DFW area for the past several years, he has summers off, and he usually also comes to stay with us for a long while in the summer.
Last Saturday morning, his roommates called us to tell us he'd been missing for several days. His car, wallet, knapsack that he always carries around with him, keys, tablet, watch, and phone charger were all in his room. None of his clothes were missing. The only thing missing was his phone, which seemed to be either off or dead, as it went straight to voicemail. And after so many days gone by without a charger, surely it'd be dead. They found evidence in his room that he'd been drinking.
Nothing made sense. His m.o. when he drank was that he drank himself into oblivion, and he shut himself in his room and let the world and responsibilities go by. Usually took a couple of days to dry him out to even get upright again. But he never disappeared. So where was he? How did he leave if his car was still there? Why did it take his roommates so long to contact us? Are they idiots? Or axe murderers who should be suspects? Did he get abducted outside the house? You just can't imagine the number of scenarios--and the nature of them--that come to mind trying to piece together a narrative that fits the facts.
It didn't take long before some pretty dark thoughts crept in, and my wife's uncle by marriage, a retired law enforcement official with the San Francisco D.A.'s office, who we contacted to help, was also trying to prepare us that this had a lot of hallmarks of someone who had no intention of coming back.
Maybe the detective in charge of the case had more important things on his plate, or isn't good at his job, I don't know, but my wife kicked into overdrive, and long story short, she was--thankfully--finally able to find him.
He had checked himself into the psychiatric facility of a nearby hospital (which my wife had already called, but you can only find out about medical patients, they won't tell you if someone is in psychiatric care). We'd found out in the process of all this that week before last, he was violently attacked by a student on his bus route, and it had shaken him pretty badly. My personal working theory is the attack triggered something and he started drinking--and spiraling, because with him it's never one drink or just one time--and he realized he had to do something drastic, so he went to the facility. Maybe they pick you up. I don't know, and I don't know why he'd leave his wallet and ID, credit cards, etc. Maybe he was too drunk to think through that. We still don't really know why he's in there, how he got there, or what the circumstances leading up to being there are, but at least for now we know he's not dead, and we know where he is. He wouldn't be allowed to have a phone there, and the patients have to contact you (on the hospital's landlines, under supervision) to go see them. You can't just show up at visiting hours.
Sunday night I kept staring at my recliner that he always sits in when he visits, and the empty chair sitting there, still and silent, somehow tormented me, as I thought I'd never see him lounging in it again, with me laughing at the hilarious things that go through his entertaining mind and fly out of his mouth. I thought about how hollow our holidays would feel. My wife's family is....interesting, let's say....and her brother is the only one she (we) have left of her folks in any meaningful way. I think this took a year off of her life, and at least 6 months off of mine, but today I am happy that he's still alive, and, ostensibly, safe.
