He's dead

There's no way to sugarcoat the last 10 days. It's simply not possible. I'm hoping to get it all down here, over the next few days. For memories sake, to just get it out. I don't know.

He hadn't been to my house since Feb 21. On March 24, in response to persistent texting on my part, just checking on him, he responded with the text "The condo is fine. The bills are paid. I'm bed-ridden." What the what? Then started several days of constant texting/calling from me, checking on him, making sure he was ok. No response. It was Dan. It wasn't shocking to get no response, and I eventually got pissed off, chalking it up to his passive-aggressiveness. Creating drama, and letting others deal with the consequences. So I toned down the texting, but was obviously still concerned or I would have stopped altogether.

On April 6, I sent him a text and noticed that it didn't get delivered to his phone, so I called him. His phone was off/dead. This was NOT the norm for him. He may not respond, he may not call back...but he always kept his phone charged. I drove by his condo on April 7, in the morning. I noticed that his bedroom light was on, which was also odd for him to have a light on during the day. I drove back by after work, and the same light was still on. I called his friend who's a cop and asked if we could do a wellness check on him. We'd planned it for the next afternoon. I drove by again that next morning and saw the same light STILL on, and just got a really bad feeling. Cop friend and I texted and he was able to meet me there about 45 minutes later.

When we got to his door we knocked, and no answer. We opened the door and David yelled his name several times, no response. Each time he yelled his name, and each time he didn't respond, my stomach dropped deeper and deeper. He was finally dead. Gross I know, but at the same time as this thought, I kept thinking, it would have been a while. If he was dead, we'd smell something. We finally walked in, and discovered he was not there. His car was there, but his keys, phone, wallet were missing. I was floored and stunned, but also had expected there might come a time when he left town, so it wasn't a huge shock. I went back over on Thurs and Fri after work, searching for something that might tell me where he was. There were no e-mail confirmations of hotel/flights. I found his charger. I found two medicine bottles, one was his depression meds. By the count, I assumed he'd stopped taking them about 6 weeks prior. There were no meds for his mania. For this reason I alone, it made the most sense to me that he'd left town.

David checked the jails in the city and surrounding areas. He called the city morgue. I called the two hospitals that he'd most likely go to, if he'd gotten sick or someone found him and called 911. He was no where. At the suggestion of a few friends, I had decided on that Monday afternoon that I would file a missing persons report. I felt strongly that he was at risk of hurting himself (and possibly others--unintentionally), and wanted him back home and stabilized on meds.