Writing up, then discarding, a case

Wound up discarding a case I was writing up to add to Charley, although the man is still listed as a missing person on NamUs and the Florida state database. I had very little information to start with, but then I found his mom’s Facebook page and she had written many posts about his death and how sad she was about it.

It was a “few details are available” case so I didn’t know whether he’d been found deceased, or whether she just assumed he must be. His mom is the kind who has all her social media posts public, and she posted often, so it was taking awhile. Finally I went to posts from the month the son disappeared and started working up from there, as that seemed like it would be more efficient.

Eventually I found it. The mom wrote that they found a man’s body wearing a belt that his brother had hand-made and given him as a gift. The body has apparently not been officially identified (my guess is they’re waiting on DNA, which can take forever), but it seems extremely unlikely that it’s anyone other than this missing guy. I’m not going to bother listing a person where the identification is basically pending; I don’t see the point.

It’s interesting the stuff that you can find out about a person on social media, things a lot of people don’t even realize you can find out. I recently got a message from a woman who was like “where did you get all those photos of my missing sister, only family had those.” I had to explain that if someone puts a photo on Facebook and tags it with User X’s account, anyone can find it just by searching Facebook for that account. Even if the photo is not posted by User X’s account, even if User X never saw the photo themselves, a complete stranger like me can find it and its association with User X. All those pics that person thought were private, and could only be seen by family, weren’t really. I told her all this and she was like “…oh.”

Good news from my house, just about the only good news I’ve had so far this year

Early this month Michael got his first dose of Moderna’s Covid vaccine, and yesterday he was given the second dose. In I think two weeks he will have 95% or greater immunity to Covid and I can stop worrying about him so much.

As far as how his body handled the vaccine, he didn’t feel any different after the first dose. The morning after the second dose he felt achy and super tired, to the point where he went to work late. This was probably his immune system revving up in response to the vaccine, and is a small price to pay for protection from getting that awful disease. He felt better by afternoon.

My father and my mother have had their first doses as well. No idea when I’m going to get my own vaccination. As a healthy young adult who doesn’t need to work outside the home, I’m pretty much at the bottom of the priority list, and I’m fine with that. I am not really worried about getting Covid myself, just worried about getting it and then giving it to someone at higher risk than me, in particular my loved ones.

I am hoping that everyone who can be vaccinated, will be by the end of this year. Though sometimes it feels like there’s no end to this.