Kentucky mom who helped search for missing persons has vanished (New York Post)

(Dedicated to Jackie Salo)

I have disappeared gradually since taking early retirement five years ago, until today I have vanished completely -- without a trace.
It started small, with a drop box installed in the lobby of my senior apartment building; instead of visiting the office to give them my check each month I dropped my rent into the box -- thus missing out on my monthly conversation with the lady behind the Plexiglas window at the office. I never knew her name but she was friendly and somewhat inquisitive. She'd ask me how I was doing and I'd usually say "Oh, fair to middling." She'd comment on the weather, and I'd agree with her most of the time -- but always in a tone that indicated I reserved the right to think independently about the weather anytime I wanted. So I fell off the face of the earth, as far as that lady behind the Plexiglas is concerned.
Then all my mail came addressed to 'Resident.' Even my bills; some kind of postal conspiracy there, I'm thinkin'. I wrote to my Congressman about it but never heard back. Why am I not surprised?
I get so sleepy nowadays that when I want to go out for game night in the community room or go visit a neighbor with some cornbread I just made I fall asleep in my recliner instead, and when I wake up it's the middle of the night. So I just go back to bed, and never go out anymore except for groceries and postage stamps. And I haven't really been hungry or wanted to write a letter in a long time.
When I call my children all I get is their voicemail. They never return my calls anymore. 
The finches have stopped coming to my thistle sock on the patio.
I saw my picture on a tattered piece of paper taped to a streetlight pole; it said I was missing and last seen wearing a Santa Claus suit back in November. I called the number on the poster to report myself as not missing at all, but the number was to an insurance agency that was only interested in selling me car insurance. And I don't drive anymore. 
This morning I looked in the mirror and the man looking back has no distinct features whatsoever. It could be anyone, or no one. Now I long to go live with owls and bats; people are a distasteful distraction. Somehow they have disappeared me, and I'm not that bitter about it. I don't even wonder whatever became of me. I am satisfied to be nothing more than a puddle of melted influence.