As Frank Turner's distraught mother rubs his hand, his labored breaths break the silence of the room, I consider Frank. The guy who patiently taught me how to use a wet saw, tile a floor and hang a door. A man with little education who could solve the geometric problems of carpentry and design without a halter, and admittedly faster than me.
He and I put in his garage door, I lifted and moved things while he controlled the project. He was not a financial success, but the man was far smarter than me. In retrospect His patience and empathy astound me.
He was my friend. And yet he seemingly wiped his past life clean in 2008. Calling me from the airport, he was flying to Philadelphia before Thanksgiving. I never heard from him again. Leaving infrequent unreturned messages, I wondered but assumed I would eventually hear back. His phone was disconnected about a year later.
His mother called me to tell me he had been brought unresponsive into the hospital as a "John Doe". Found in a room in Tampa, emancipated, malnourished, he had suffered a massive heart attack and stroke. Realizing the gravity of the situation on arrival, it was time to prepare his mom and myself for the imminent.
It saddened and alarmed me that Frank was alone. Long days and difficult decisions in the hospital were followed by a day in Hospice. Few were present. No one who could enlighten us. All that had culminated in Frank's existence was a conundrum of withdrawal and isolation.
Perhaps the biggest concern is that anyone of us can leave life this way, without leaving a carved initial in a tree, a memory that will mark us.
There are no answers to the mystery that was his recent life.
I have no destination with this post. Perhaps it, like life, is only a journey. Frank is 49 years of age
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