Does Anybody Know?

A buddy told me of a guy he used to run around with this afternoon.  They finally found him - he'd been missing for a little more than two months. 

Three years ago this man, who's body was identified last week from the dental work in his teeth, had a wife, a family, two houses and a good paying job.  His two kids were doing well in college and his future was both bright and secure.  First thing he lost his was his job. 

Joe was OK for the first year, savings and unemployment - and drastic cuts in lifestyle - allowed him to keep both kids in school another year and one of them graduated.  He kept in touch with most of his acquaintances and all of his friends that first year, and often joked about knowing what retirement was all about.  His cobra plan at work was expensive, but he managed to pay for it.  My friend knows this because by the end of that first year, he had started to complain about the cost. 

He said he was gonna have to drop the coverage because the guy who rented their second house had lost HIS job and moved out.  He now had two house payments each month, but it was gonna be OK - he was putting both houses on the market and for sure one or the other would sell.  Neither did, and by the end of the second year without a job, both of his houses were gone.  The bank would not allow short sales, and he owed more than they were worth.  The boat, snowmobiles and jet skis were also long gone.  And now, so was the unemployment check.

His wife, who was almost twenty years younger, was the next to go.  It was his second marrige to end in disaster.  She had had enough of a loser, to hear him tell it, and she just left.  My friend did not know where she had gone, Joe didn't say.  He learned of this development when he last saw Joe, a little over four months back. 

According to the newspaper, the police were notified he was missing when his new landlord knocked on the door to his room while trying to collect back rent.  All his stuff was there, but no Joe.  I have no idea how long nor how thoroughly the cops searched; my friend got a call from them asking if he had any idea where Joe was so they must have spent some effort looking, but didn't find a thing. 

Hikers found and reported the remains a couple of weeks ago beside a stream in the mountains a little southeast of Phoenix.  There was no car, no camping gear, no fishing stuff.  He was just there by himself, alone beside the stream. There was nothing there with which to identify him, so it took awhile before the notice appeared in the paper.  There was no funeral, just an item in the paper stating the remains that had been found were his. 

He had worked hard all his life, raised two families and educated all his children.  He made his own way, in this hard land we call America, for sixty years.  He took care of his own, minded his business, never caused any problems and put smiles on the faces of his friends for years.

How is it a man like this, who played by the rules all his life, was left by everyone to die alone.  Penniless, broken, deserted.  My friend wanted to know the answer.

 I told him I just don't know.