Everything Crashed

Just this morning (9/9), we confirmed what we feared - the last seven months of H.'s tales are just that - stories he created to fit the narrative he wanted us to believe.  We are (now) pretty sure he's been homeless for months; must have taken out a title loan on the car which was then repossessed so he has no transportation and not even a car as a roof over his head.  

It's been a week since we last heard from him - a call from a text app on someone's phone.  I've been in touch with the owner of the phone who gave no identification information (no name, no gender) and while they responded to a text from me to 'them' (not knowing who they are), minimal information was provided about who/what/when/where and why this person was in touch with H. .  Calls from H. to that number on 9/4 and 8/31 - and now nothing.  H. had said it was from a 'text me' app which isn't really a cell phone plan - so there's no way to trace back to the owner of the number. 

We feel H. is officially missing at this point and the terrifying scenarios that run through my head (particularly around 2-3AM most days lately) are hard to deal with.  

We do our best to keep busy around the homestead, grateful there's always something to do to keep things running smoothly.  Tackling some big projects like redoing my bedroom closet - I've been through every single stitch of clothing I own and culled quite a bit - but we're still feeling raw, gutted and scared.  Really scared.  

We're going to talk to our neighbor who is retired police as well as a licensed private investigator.  We hope he can offer ideas about what to do next and we will likely be contacting the Houston Sheriff's Office to ask for help - file a BOLO (be on the lookout) followed by a missing person's report as soon as we can.  We don't have high hopes for any immediate action on the Sheriff's department but filing at least puts H.'s status on record somewhere.  

B. is on his way to Louisiana (Ft. Polk) for a few weeks - we've agreed we won't be sending updates to him on H.'s situation until B. requests an update - he has a lot to focus on and can't spare the brain cells.  I totally get that.  Bless his heart, though, when we confirmed the process for how we would reach him if something tragic happened, he sent the link for the military contact procedure through Red Cross.  Just in case.

I contacted my therapist and scheduled a call with her this week - I know my psyche needs to talk to someone and I couldn't handle the thought of 'starting over' - so thankfully, though she is mostly retired, she agreed to do a video conference session.  Whew.  I think that will really help. 

I beat myself up that the call I had from H. on 9/4 was short - I wasn't really awake enough to draw it out and since he said he was calling to ask for money (and at that point, I had no idea the carefully, intricately crafted stories he'd been telling us for more than six months were completely false), I wasn't overly effusive in my demeanor.  I regret that.  Wishing I'd known all the 'stuff' we now know so I could ask what we could do to better help him.  

Prayers and/or positive mojo appreciated.  In decades of worrying about H. I can say with certainty we are the most worried we've ever, ever been.