February 27th, 2021

It was an unseasonably warm Saturday for late February in Ohio. So warm, in fact, that we opened the windows, letting the fresh air blow through my house. An oasis in the dead of winter.

My husband and I were sitting at our kitchen table playing cards with my parents, feeling like actual human beings considering it was the first time we’d been able to do anything besides eat or sleep since the day my water burst and a newborn was thrust into our world. We were new parents drowning in all the wonderful, exhausting chaos that comes with the role. Our son was napping in the living room just behind me. Finally sleeping peacefully enough we could resurface and see a glimpse of our “normal” life again.

I checked my phone between hands of Canasta to see if I had a response from my brother. I had forgotten about the strange email I received from him that morning until that instant. No reply.

Hours earlier, while bleary-eyed and sleep-deprived, I stumbled into my home office and sat at my desk. I attached the pump parts to my body that would prepare my son’s mid-morning bottle of breastmilk and opened the lid of my laptop. The most recent email in my inbox was from my brother.

“Good Morning!” Chirped the subject line cheerily. I briefly wondered why he was emailing instead of texting.

I started reading but I couldn’t make sense of it.

Well hey there my precious people!! 👪👵👨 👩
Random right!?! 
This can't be real!! 😲
-Oh, it's as real as you and me my friend. 😉
Please don't cry 😭. REJOICE, REJOICE and I again I say REJOICE!! 
🎉 🎊

Now, just so you're not Totally confused...Noo, no ... you're not 
receiving an email from heaven ... although that's where I now call 
home 👑

Heaven? What?! My brother had been traveling out west earlier in the week, but was back home and in bed at his girlfriend’s house ten minutes from mine, as far as I knew.

The note continued and only got more bizarre:

How could I message you after I'm gone? Ya know, that whole Back to 
the Future thing where the postman found Doc in 1955 and gave him a 
letter from 1985? Unfortunately we can't rely on USPS 📭 like that 
these days, so thanks to email "timed delivery" 📧⏰ I've been 
working on this for years.

Any time I was flying on a plane, or some other "risky" adventure 
I would set this email to be delivered a few days later. Of course 
I have to account for the time it takes for you to be notified of 
my home-going to begin with... before receiving this email.

Of course he did, I thought.

The next paragraph mentioned going skydiving in Phoenix – which I knew about, he had posted the video on social media a few days earlier – and explained that he planned to skydive again the following day at the Grand Canyon.

Wait…Was this email saying that my brother died while skydiving? No, that can’t be right… that would have been three days ago, we hadn’t been notified of any accident.

I jumped to the most logical conclusion: he had forgotten to rescind the ridiculously grandiose contingency plan after his trip. I shot him a quick text, “Hey jackass, recall that email you sent before my parents see it and freak out.”

Now it was four hours later and I still had no reply. Which was odd for my constantly-attached-to-his-cell-phone brother.

Before picking my cards back up, I messaged his girlfriend, “Hey! I got a weird email from John…. Are you with him?”

Within a few minutes, my phone rang. Her name was on the caller ID. Oh boy, I thought, What has he gotten himself into now? I slipped out of the room to take the call. My parents didn’t need to know the drama if they didn’t have to.

I assumed my brother was in jail – again – or some other ridiculous predicament. And that’s why his bizarre auto-timed email had been delivered to my inbox.

“I’m not with John. I’m actually out of town and I also got a strange email from him this morning,” She said, “I haven’t heard from him since Tuesday.”

My stomach sank. My mind jumped to the worst case, but there were so many other possible scenarios, I pushed it aside.

Either way, my brother was missing, and had been for four days.

The next details unfolded rapidly.

His girlfriend told me that after receiving his email that morning and not being able to reach him, she had already contacted the Skydiving company at the Grand Canyon. He never even had a reservation, much less a fatal accident.

Next, she contacted the Grand Canyon Park Rangers and the Phoenix Police Department. They were reaching out to other local authorities, hospitals, morgues, police stations, etc. and would keep her updated.

It was like listening to a TV drama script, except these were words in my actual life.

We compared notes from our emails and dissected each sentence. “My guess would be jail over death,” I told his girlfriend, “He probably got pulled over somewhere between Phoenix and the canyon driving without a valid driver’s license. It wouldn’t be the first time. His phone is probably sealed in a personal effects bag and that’s why he didn’t cancel the email.”

I couldn’t stop the next stream of words that passed through my lips, “I’m usually the one he calls to get bailed out though, so I’m surprised I haven’t heard from him…

…He could have been in a car accident and is unconscious in some random hospital in the middle of no where. There are so many possibilities… You let me know if you hear from him, or the authorities and I will do the same.”

I walked back in my kitchen and resumed the card game, feigning nonchalance.

“What did John do now?” My mom asked. Ain’t nothing gets past that lady.

*

Within 24 hours of contacting the authorities, it was confirmed that my brother had arrived at the Grand Canyon but no one knew if he was still inside the National Park or not. There were cameras at the entrance showing that he pulled in with his motorcycle strapped to the back of his SUV, and they found his SUV in a parking lot, but the bike was missing.

Unfortunately, there are no cameras on the exit, so, for all we knew he was presently riding cross-country on his motorcycle, just to say he had, and would pull in our driveway any minute with a crazy story and a busted phone. Every time I heard a motorcycle engine growling thru our neighborhood my heart would leap with expectancy.

Or, maybe he had tried trail riding in the canyon and wrecked or had gotten stuck somewhere. It was Winter there too, after all. They could have had snow that week. Both cases plausible.

By the end of that day, my brother was a National Missing Person.

*

My husband and I were pulling into one of our favorite dinner spots on Sunday when my phone started blowing up. It was our first night out since the birth of our son. My mom had insisted we go on a date and took over at home. Even though we still didn’t know the whereabouts of my brother, we went out anyway. I felt a little guilty, but we needed it so badly.

The news had gone live. Dozens of people were messaging me with links to news articles about the missing person. “Is this our John Pennington?” “This has to be a mistake.” “What’s going on?” “Is he ok?” “Is this your brother?” It was so overwhelming I couldn’t even respond. We didn’t have all the details ourselves, what was I supposed to say? And this surely would turn out to be some idiotic mistake or scandal my brother got himself into.

*

John’s Girlfriend and I talked on the phone a few times each day trading information back and forth. My husband took over communication with the various law forces.

The Grand Canyon National Park Rangers were out searching the canyon on foot and would be sending out the helicopter on Monday.

But for now, all we could do was wait.