I have spent more than half of my life looking for the remains of someone I cherished; thanks to the Hart Island Project I am certain I have found him. I didn’t know about Hart Island until I stumbled on the information recently, and I am not – nor can I ever be – 100% certain this is him, because he is listed as Unknown. But I know the date of his death, and I know that he would have been and was unclaimed and unknown, and somehow I just KNOW this is him, found at last. If I am not correct, I hope that this individual will forgive me if I claim him in error.
There is another site that describes the people left to Hart Island as, “The unnamed, the lost, the forgotten, the unwanted.” So very sad for so very many, but not true for every individual there.
In this case, Joel was, in the beginning, unwanted. Joel was, in the end, unnamed and lost, but Joel has not (yet) been forgotten.
Joel was born in New York City. Brutally abused as a child, he ran away from home at around 15 years old. And although all of his life Joel carried the physical and emotional scars of the abuse he endured growing up, he became a very intelligent man with a sense of humor, a sense of honor, a sense of compassion, and a direct and charming personality. He worked to earn a living and he led a quiet and mostly lonely life. Sometimes Joel’s suffering affected him beyond his ability to bear it, but he always came back; his ability to laugh and connect with others always came back with him, until he was lost to history 32 years ago.
Our lives end too quickly and none of us can never completely know another’s entire story. In a sense, whether or not each of us is or ever was wanted, in the end all of us are unnamed, lost, and forgotten. Written words can record history – a name, a memory, a tribute, a moment in time too quickly gone, but words can never replace an individual gone forever.
Joel, for 32 years I have marked the date of your death and I will do so for the rest of my time; I remember you.