Posted on by Californiacontrarian

Missing, but Presumably not Dead

Last week I read an article entitled, “The Long Road From Missing, to Legally Dead.” It detailed the chronicle of an Arizona woman whose 59 year old husband, Dennis Yu, vanished in November 2012. He apparently left his house that morning on foot as his car was still in the driveway. He did not show up for work at Panda Express where he was a manager and has not been seen since. His glasses, wallet, passport, and his meds were also all at home. There was no reason to think that he left his family, voluntarily as he still had a steady job and four children living at home. Since he did not own a cellphone, he was essentially unreachable. No trace of him was ever found again.

A genuine horror story for his wife! However for her from that day in November, 2012, things just continued to get worse, as for almost the last six years Mr. Yu has been considered as missing, not dead. This becomes a major deal, because since he was not legally dead, she could not sell any of their jointly owned property and she could not get the benefits of his life insurance policy. Life for her as a single mom raising four kids still at home was extremely difficult. The laws are different from state to state but most presume a missing person to be dead after either five or seven years, and finally last week Mr. Yu was declared legally dead.
This got me to thinking about C.S. who has been missing until recently for about eight years. Just about every week I hear someone say, “What ever happened to C.S.?” For a long time I have assumed that C.S. was merely unrecognizable, disguised as someone else. I could not face the fact that C.S. was actually dead! Could C.S. possibly be just hiding out, waiting for the right time to make an appearance!
Last week I wrote a piece about security clearances, and expressed my opinion that perhaps the best way to deal with this issue was to just use  . . . Common Sense!
 If Common Sense were not dead, this might be the apropos time for him/her to make a reappearance.
I did get one interesting response to my plea that keep Common Sense alive. That response was simply, “Hmmm!” Now no matter what intonation I use, “Hmmm” still expresses doubt. I guess that “Doubting Thomasina” believes that C.S is dead. I don’t,
and I hope that we will be seeing more of Common Sense, especially in the political sphere.

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