Thursday, April 22, 2010

A Brother Missing

It has been over four months now since we learned that our brother, son and friend, Steven Koecher went missing in the Las Vegas area. Since then our family has spent countless hours worrying and wondering about Steven. Where could he be? Why did he go down there? Why hasn't he tried making contact with us? What has happened to him? Is he alive or dead? So many questions and so little answers. It is absolutely amazing that with today's technologies that someone could go missing with out a trace of evidence.

Now four months, multiple searches, dozens of news stories and even a reward later still I don't think we are any closer to finding him then the day my dad and I went down there to search the area. Now it's time for me to express my feelings about the situation. I have been suppressing them and ignoring them and what ever else I can to do in an attempt not to feel.

Do you know what limbo feels like? I think I could tell you. Imagine the spectrum of emotion from pure joy and happiness to the deepest sorrow and pain, well for me limbo isn't on that scale at all. It's not even an emotion. It's a place where you can't feel the good or the pain. I think not feeling at all is worse then being in a pit of the deepest sorrow. At least then you know where to go from there. This whole thing has left me off the canons of normal emotion and taken me to a place I don't recognize.

I have become numb. When I talk about Steven to others I don't feel happy or sad, hopeful or doubtful, I just don't feel. It's become like talking about the weather in a forced conversation in which you try to avoid the awkwardness of silence. Meaningless. Each time some one asks me "Any news?" I go into the weather spiel. "No."

I must apologize to my family and friends who may think I am not take the gravity of the situation seriously. I'm sorry if I continue to be too jovial, or have seemed to move on, but really I hide the pain and fear of expecting the worst. I hide behind a smile, a joke, and a pretend confidence. I don't know of any other way to cope. I love my brother Steven so much. I feel like he and I always had a special bond, like we were cut from the same fabric as it were. I would call him from time to time to talk about anything and nothing, and he would do the same to me. Hearing his voice on his voice mail now that he's not a phone call away cuts deep inside of me.

So I apologize to my dear family. What you see in me now is a person coping over a missing brother. I haven't given up, but I just don't know where to go. I haven't lost hope, in the other side of the veil at least. It's in God's hands now.

Love ya Steve. By: