Vanishing in Plain Sight, by Elizabeth A. Mitchell

By Elizabeth A. Mitchell, The Catholic Thing, Dec. 18, 2021

Dr. Elizabeth A. Mitchell, S.C.D., received her doctorate in Institutional Social Communications from the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome where she worked as a translator for the Holy See Press Office and L’Osservatore Romano.  …

Planes are disappearing from the skies, stocks are disappearing from the shelves, and workers are disappearing from their jobs.  It is happening all around us. Wherefore vanish these, purgatorial shadows?

It happened to me just days ago.  I noticed that I vanished.  It began one quiet afternoon during a discussion with my supervisor at the assisted living home where I work two evenings a week.  Mid-sentence, I noticed that she was looking through me, as if I were not sitting right in front of her.  She was looking past me, to the empty space she saw.  She saw it in my future.  Her gaze was a mix of pity and regret.  She was seeing what I did not then know; she was seeing that I would soon vanish….

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