Photo: DeLand Family
Welcome home, Ken.
We’ve missed you. And these recent weeks, when no one’s known where you were, and your folks were on the TV frantically looking for you, we’ve worried about you and prayed for you.
And we’re glad you are home.
To be blunt, we’re glad you’re alive. Some of us feared you weren’t. When you went missing, there were really only two possible explanations: You had been the victim of a crime, or you were off on your own, for some reason incommunicado.
That’s what I figured it was. That for whatever reason, you needed to get away. Maybe you needed to clear your head, maybe you were holed up with a lover, maybe you were finding your place in the world, maybe you were having a month-long drunk, or shaking a cloud that encumbered your mind. Stuff like that happens. We wrestle with our thoughts, or maybe our mental health, or with the demands and responsibilities of life.
Those things are all natural, and there aren’t many of us who haven’t felt their pull a time or two.
I think the native people of Australia call it a “walkabout,” a stage in young manhood where a guy has to go out in the wilderness and get his head straight, coming home less of a boy and more of a man and better focused on who he is. They have a name for it, but all cultures do it, one way or another, and maybe that’s what you were up to.
But what you were up to is your business. You don’t owe anybody, other than maybe your parents, an explanation of where you were or what you were doing. You are an adult, you are a free person, and your life is your business. Yes, your picture and your name were on the TV news, the people at the church had a vigil for you, and your dad banged the drum of publicity in hopes of bringing you home. But you don’t owe anybody anything.
And though the cloud of curiosity and even controversy may seem to rage stormily about you right now, it is fleeting. Few stories last more than 48 hours, and everything passes in time, and by the weekend the general public will have forgotten you and your absence. Please do not let the attention of the TV cameras frighten you or deceive you. This will pass quickly. Normalcy will return. You are going to be OK.
In all likelihood, you are going to be better.
In all likelihood, you learned something while you were away. Some things you have realized already, and some things that will only come in time. The odds are, you are a better man now than you were a month ago. If nothing else, you have shown yourself that you can fend for yourself, that you can face uncertainty in a foreign land and come out alright.
You have also learned anew how much you are loved. Your dad’s love turned to action and your mother’s love turned to tears. Both are a great blessing and remind you who you truly are in the world – a member of a family that has your back and will come to your aid. You had that proven to you as you met your mother in France.
But it wasn’t just them.
Ken, you were loved by us. By everybody who gets Rochester TV, by strangers all across the region. People who could relate to your parents, and people who could relate to you. We all fear the disappearance of a loved one; we’ve all wanted to disappear off the radar. We’ve missed the embrace of family, and we’ve felt called to drift. And you’re good with us. That’s the takeaway here. You’re good with us.
And you did us a favor.
At a season in our country’s history when we are divided and hostile, when the institutions of power seem intent on tearing us apart, you reminded us that we care about strangers, that we care about each other. We don’t know you, but we worried about you like a son or a brother, and that reminded us that we are all brothers and sisters, that we are all family.
So, welcome home, Ken.
Be well, be happy, and thank you.