just below the surface

A few weeks ago a man and woman came to town for a business conference. It was his conference, but she came along to see a new city. By all accounts they were a loving couple who enjoyed each others' company so much that they would travel together to these conferences.

They were staying in an extended stay hotel and had a rental car. They appeared to be enjoying their stay. Then something happened.

He reported her missing to the police. They put out a bulletin for the rental car's license plate.

I didn't hear about it until a young man, her son, working as a contractor in Afghanistan called the local news to plea for help, and offer a reward.

It was heart wrenching to see this young man, half a world away, helpless, trying to figure out what to do and how to make sense.

Can you imagine learning your mother is missing from a newscast or a google search? I don't know what the circumstances were that led him to be googling his mom. But there he was wondering what he should do next. Apparently his stepfather had already traveled back to wherever they had come from and left the searching to the police.

I didn't hear anything about it for about a week. I was out of town myself and back by the time I read an even more disturbing news story.

The university police had found the woman's body in her car parked on campus. The disturbing part was that they had already ticketed the car three times before anyone had noticed she was in there.

How is that even possible??

They made excuses. She had lowered the driver seat back. The windows were dirty.

Actually, they just didn't care. I always wonder when they leave the second ticket (mind you they are not allowed to ticket more than one a day) that someone would think to check the license plate. I get that they are rent a cops and don't have access to the police databases, but how could it hurt to once a day check in with the real cops on weird situations? I am sure that many stolen cars end up with a stack of parking tickets around cities where no one checks.

Not my job.

Meanwhile, the family, at least the son, is waiting in hell trying to understand what happened without really knowing what is going on at all.

Now the cops say that there was some kind of domestic dispute and she took off in the car.

Now they are saying she probably took some pills and then just locked herself in the car.

The picture of the loving couple is now shattered. Just below the surface we never know what is really going on with anyone.

I am sure all of those things are true, still that was a person. Someone's wife, someone's mother, someone's daughter and someone's friend.

As we rush around doing what we think is our job, how much of life are we missing? How many opportunities to reach out to someone who needs us are we missing?