The man disappeared 15 years ago one evening the phone rang and the wife learned the terrible truth. Hi friends, have you ever thought about how unpredictable our lives are? Even though we all think that we always have everything under control, none of us can know what will happen tomorrow. Even if today you are a perfect family man with a good job and a loving wife, tomorrow everything can change in a moment. Today I will tell you the story of a man who lost his life for a long 15 years in one tragic day, and it was only through a miracle and coincidence that this story was put to rest.
Jim McDonnell was from suburban New York, where he was born in an ordinary middle-class family in 1921. From childhood, he was responsible, easy-going, and a good student. But after finishing school, the boy decided to go to work immediately, becoming a postman delivering mail. As fate would have it, Jim met Anne, and soon in 1955, the man took this nice and beautiful girl as his wife. Anticipating the fact that Jim and Anne loved each other very much, they had a lot of plans for the future. Unfortunately, life often has some not so pleasant surprises. The couple’s family idyll was overshadowed by the fact that they couldn’t have children. But the McDonnell family were religious people. They accepted their fate and decided that they needed to invest all of their love in each other. From then on, it was like any other story. Their life went on as usual. Loving Anne welcomed her husband home from work with a delicious dinner, and Jim surprised her with gifts. In general, the neighbors took the McDonnell family as an example, for not only were they able to live their lives in love and understanding, but they never quarreled. Everything was just perfect.
On a very ordinary February morning in 1971, Jim, who was in his 50s at the time, was taking out the trash. Coincidentally, he slipped on the porch of his house and bruised his head on the fall. Despite the pain, Jim decided not to go to the doctor and waited until it had passed on its own. As usual, it was probably the biggest mistake of his life. A couple of days after the fall, Jim went to visit a friend who lived 10 kilometers away from their home. At one moment, his eyes went black, after which he lost control of his car and crashed into a pole. As you may have guessed at this point, the man hit his head hard again, but the repeated injury was not the reason for him to go to the hospital even this time. Several head injuries in such a short period did the trick. Jim became dizzy often and even fainted a couple of times. But no matter how much Anne urged her husband to go to the hospital, he was adamant that it would go away on its own. If he had known then what his irresponsibility would entail, he probably would have acted differently.
On March 29, 1971, Jim went to visit a comrade for a game of poker. Having had a fun evening, the man decided to head home. But when he wanted to start his car, it turned out to have a dead battery. A friend offered to drive him home, but Jim declined, saying he had a bit of a headache and would walk. This wasn’t strange, as it was only a 15-minute walk home. After saying goodbye to his friend, our hero hit the road. No one had seen him since that ill-fated evening, but what had happened to the man that day, and why had he never come home to his beloved Anne? « I looked at my watch and couldn’t understand why Jim wasn’t coming back. When it hit midnight, I decided to call the friend my husband was headed to, » Anne told police officers. She immediately contacted the sheriff. The town where the couple lived was small, and everyone knew each other well. The policeman searching for Jim was well aware that the man couldn’t have gone AWOL, which meant something had happened to him. Volunteers, police officers, and the man’s friends began searching the area, calling hospitals and morgues. Posters with a picture of the missing man were put up around the city. A huge amount of work had been carried out, but unfortunately, it did not yield any results.
As the days dragged on and on, a month had passed since Jim’s disappearance. Anne kept her hopes up, trying to find out what had happened to her husband. But so it was, half a year, a year, and then ten. No one but Anne hoped that Jim would ever come back. Because so many people disappeared every day under mysterious circumstances, taking their secrets with them forever. Anne was the only one who never forgot Jim. She loved him so much that she believed to the last minute that he would come back. The woman did not start a new relationship, and Jim’s things were still in their place in the house, even though the police and relatives urged Anne to accept it. She could not. Of course, the woman had aged and changed in so many years, and life was no longer pleasurable for her. There were also evil tongues spreading gossip. Some said that the man had left everything and run off with his mistress. Some were convinced that he was hiding from someone, but most just agreed that he was dead. One could agree with that. But in 1986, the unbelievable happened.
On Christmas Day 1986, someone knocked on the door of the McDonnell family home. And when the elderly woman leisurely opened the door, she nearly fainted. Indeed, in spite of the fact that 15 years had passed, she recognized the man who stood on the doorstep. Yes, it was her beloved Jim. « The first thing I remembered when I came to was unfamiliar houses and streets. My headache mercilessly and I didn’t feel well. I tried to get up, and I even managed to walk a few meters, but then I lost consciousness again, » the man later remembered. He was unconscious in an alleyway for a few hours, and when he woke up, he felt fine. But there was one problem. He had absolutely no memory of who he was or where he was going. He looked up at a billboard and saw a local estate agent, James Peters, on it. Since Jim couldn’t even remember his own name, he decided that he would call himself by that name. The man couldn’t remember anything of his past life, and there was nothing left for him to do but wander the streets and ramble along. « I didn’t go to the police or the hospital because I was afraid I might have done something very bad in a past life. I didn’t remember or know anything about myself at all, » Jim later recounted.
The next few months of the man’s life were quite difficult, but the world is not without good people. A church worker took him in and gave him a job, a place to live, and even helped him get a new national insurance number. The years went by, and Jim was doing fine as a cook at a local Philadelphia diner. But everything changed when a customer noticed that the man had a New York native accent. When he told him this, Jim began to show some memories in his head, but the poor man couldn’t piece them together. He could see the streets and people’s faces, but he had no idea who they were or where the place was. This was the case until 1985. One evening, Jim saw a story on TV about postmen delivering mail in all seasons and in all weathers. As he watched the show, he had the feeling he knew everything about the profession, but he couldn’t understand the most important thing. How? Throughout 1986, Jim had scraps of various memories floating around in his head, but the turning point was December 22nd. On that day, Jim, then James Peters, began to have severe headaches, after which he lost consciousness. And when he woke up in the morning, he not only felt awake, but he could not understand, with astonishment, where he was. At that moment, he remembered everything about his past life. « That same day, I bought a train ticket and headed for my home. I knew it had been so many years, and I only hoped for one thing. That my aunt was waiting for me. I knew she was probably already living another life, but I had to tell her I was alive. And most importantly, I now remembered who I was, » Jim explained.
As you already know, the man was not wrong, and Anne had waited faithfully for him for all 15 years. Their reunion was heartwarming and touching, but no one could hold back tears. The couple reunited after so many years and lived in love for the rest of their years. This time, Anne insisted and Jim went to the doctor. Surprisingly, no changes were found in the man’s brain by specialists, but the doctor was firmly convinced that the amnesia was the result of a series of traumas. Jim tried to remember some fragments of that evening, also how he had ended up in Philadelphia. But his mind was dark. Maybe he’d just wandered into a train station, taking the first train to Philadelphia. Or maybe a fellow traveler had picked him up. For 15 years, Jim had no idea who he was. He was just a man without a past, and that terrified him greatly. He was also afraid that he had been a bad person in a past life, and this made him give up the idea of turning himself into the police. The mysteries and possibilities of the human brain are still, to this day, the most painful and difficult question for researchers. Because a rather sad picture has emerged in the study of the brain. If we compare it to a car, scientists know how brakes work, but they still don’t understand how the car itself works as a whole. One thing is clear: the human brain is one of the most complex mechanisms in the world, and it never ceases to amaze. That’s the story. Write what you think about it. That’s it for today.
