The Hardest Essay I’ve Ever Written
After six years of drafting and revising, deep thinking, and heartfelt questioning…I’m proud to say that my essay about a young man who has been missing since March 2010, has been published. Proximity Magazine accepted this piece for their “reunion” theme, as my essay explores a reunion that is much longed for but never arrives. I commend the editorial staff for its willingness to take this leap with me, publishing experimental nonfiction about a live-wire topic with real hearts and minds at stake. Please join me in celebrating this magazine, reading this essay, and sending out filaments of hope that someday, Jacob Cabinaw and his family will have their reunion.
Here are the first few lines of my essay, “MISSING,” and you can read it in full for free online with this link:
It might be that his smile could have been my smile. Or that he left his cell phone charger behind. That he played Frisbee golf; had a girlfriend, two kids, a nice boss. “Good people do stupid things,” a woman gossips in the grocery store. She jabs her chubby finger at the Traverse City Record-Eagle news—MISSING. Or stupid things happen to good people, I think.