There's a light on in Hannibal and I know I should be home:

Last week, my family gained contact with my cousin, Grant, a boy that we have never met. After his dad died when he was two months old, his mom whisked him away to Colorado, and we didn't have contact. Period. The only time we've ever talked to him was when he was ten and he called my step-dad. But it was a lucky google search that led my mom to his facebook, and she was joyous when he accepted her friend request, which gave us access to photos. To his likes, dislikes. Activities. Things we've never had before.

I grew up hearing about how much they missed him, a baby they've technically never seen. But he's family, and as I've learned with my step-dad's family, that means that there is so much love spread to you. I've heard stories about his dad. I've heard stories about how we lost him.

So when we gained contact last week, you can imagine how excited we all were. For the first time in almost sixteen years, we had hope of getting to know him. And it was exciting, thrilling. The possibility of getting to know my cousin.

But I've come to realize that you can't ever get your hopes up too much, because then you have farther to fall when things go wrong.

When my mom logged on to her facebook yesterday, she noticed that Grant was mysteriously gone. It was as though he didn't exist in her friends at all, and so she called me, panicked, to check if he was there. But he's not. And it's heartbreaking for me.

We still have a few options based on the information that we got off of his facebook, but it's not the same. It's scary to think that we might lose him, again. Like my mom said to me on the phone a couple minutes ago:

"I feel like my heart is broken."