Goodbye?

I'm not very good at letting people go. I still talk to my best friend from when I was 6 about once a week on the phone. This weekend I'm going to visit my two best friends from high school. I talk to my roommate from college on the phone about twice a week and email with her a few times a day. I am in regular contact with college friends who are now living in Kazakhstan, Tanzania, and France. I email my host sister from Nicaragua and my host father from Kenya. Thanks to Facebook, email, gchat, Skype, and cell phones, it seems that no one is ever REALLY gone. Even if I don't communicate directly with friends from high school and college, I, in most cases, can still see when they get a new job, move, start dating or break up with someone, and any number of other things through Facebook and blogs. I, and most of my generation, have come to expect and demand ties that withstand any distance or length of time, however informal. I'm not even at the forefront of this communication and connectivity craze. I am notoriously hard to reach by cell phone, partially because I leave it places and partially because I refuse to answer it during work, meals, or meetings (and it appalls me that this surprises people). I only use one online networking site, despite invitations to join MySpace, twitter, and any other number of resources that would invite even more people into my life.

I'm not trying to say that all of this is good or bad; like (almost) everything else, there are benefits and disadvantages to hyper connectivity. This week I'm learning about some of the disadvantages.

My favorite client from work is gone. He arrived at the shelter the same day I did. I even did part of his intake interview (which with LITERALLY no training was an interesting experience). He is friendly, funny, and very intelligent. He was a source of encouragement and joy for staff and clients alike. We had frequent conversations about friendship, relationships, family, religion, and politics. A recovering cocaine addict, he had relapsed and used drugs once while a resident here. He immediately told staff, was placed on contract, and even publicly apologized to the other residents (which he did of his own accord with no prompting from us).

Last Sunday he didn't come back to the shelter. His curfew had just been moved from 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM. At 10:00 PM he phoned to say that he was waiting for a bus, and would be back soon. That was the last we heard from him. The veteran's administration, who funds his placement here, has said that they will no longer pay for him to stay here. If he returns to the shelter, we are supposed to escort him to retrieve his belongings, and then ask him to leave. As the days pass, however, it is seeming less and less likely that he's coming back. We have called central booking and every hospital in Baltimore, and he's not there.

I feel betrayed. He specifically told me when I pointed out that he and I had the same first day that "we came together and we'll leave together." He said he wanted to have permanent housing before I leave in August. It was quite a realistic goal, he was doing well in recovery and worked very, very hard. And now? He's just gone. I'm not offended if he has started using drugs again, because I know that addiction is bigger than I am and that nothing I can do can make it go away, but I'm hurt that he would not at least let us know what's going on.

More than anything, I'm worried about him. Did he die? Is he staying with family? Is he living in a park? There is no Facebook status update or blog entry or group email I can check. I can't call him because he has no phone. I can't send him a letter because he's homeless. Ours was a relationship built entirely on face-to-face interaction; now one of those faces is gone. While going home from work I found myself looking closely at the people I pass on the street. Maybe he's out there. Maybe I'll run into him at the inner harbor or Lexington Market. But most likely, I'll never see or hear from him again, and that is a concept that is incredibly difficult to wrap my head around.