Telephone call on a Sunday, from the police in a small village in the county south of here. Apparently someone has disappeared, and the neighbors are worried about him – someone I've never met: but someone who is on my list of contacts for HIV patients who want to talk to someone.
This is a guy who called me more than a year ago; he decided not to meet with any of us – but apparently he called my telephone number again lately, and it was his last call before he drove away. And I wasn't here....
Well, there's nothing I can do. I missed the call; who knows, hopefully he's all right. I told the police what little I know.
It does shift the shape of the universe, of course: in ways that include all the obvious aspects of being concerned about another person in trouble, and how that draws attention away from oneself; and the possibility that something really awful has happened, which makes all my complaints look ludicrous.
And it feels strange to have only this tangential connection to something that might have gone terribly wrong, and to have nothing whatsoever you can do about it – someone else's problem?....
***
LATER UPDATE: Forty-eight hours later: received a telephone call from the head of Psychology at the Hospital – he has come home, and he is okay. It is true, though, that he was thinking of (planning on?) committing suicide... so we are lucky. And a good thing too....
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