MAJOR UPDATE: The Proof That We’re Alive Is Missing

I thought the story was over.

Apparently not.

For anyone joining this little bureaucratic adventure late, here is the highly abbreviated version.

The U.S. Social Security Administration mailed Karen and me Form SSA-7162 here in Greece.

Its purpose is basically:

Please confirm that you are still alive so we can continue paying you.

Reasonable enough.

We received the forms in Kalamata.

Filled them out.

Signed them.

And on July 21, mailed them back to the United States.

ELTA performed beautifully.

Kalamata.

Athens.

Eleftherios Venizelos Airport.

Across the Atlantic.

Four days later, our envelope was in New York.

Then America took possession.

And things became…

less clear.

USPS showed the envelope processed through Jamaica, New York.

ELTA said it had been retained by U.S. Customs.

Then nothing moved.

Days passed.

Then weeks.

Somewhere between:

USPS HAS IT

and

CUSTOMS HAS IT

our little white envelope apparently entered a bureaucratic Bermuda Triangle.

By August 13, I had had enough.

So I opened a USPS Missing Mail Search.

Now, when you submit one of these, you normally receive an automated email confirming that USPS has received the request.

Nothing complicated.

The computer says:

Yes, we got it.

Here is your search number.

We will look for your mail.

Except I received…

nothing.

No email.

No confirmation.

No search number.

Silence.

Which somehow seemed appropriate.

USPS had apparently lost the envelope.

Perhaps it had now also lost the report saying that it had lost the envelope.

Every once in a while, usually when I had nothing more productive to do with my life, I would return to the USPS website.

Finding the Missing Mail page is itself something of a scavenger hunt.

It is not exactly sitting there beneath a large button marked:

HAVE WE LOST SOMETHING IMPORTANT OF YOURS?

But eventually I would find it.

Enter the tracking number.

Click.

And USPS would tell me:

You have already submitted a Missing Mail Search.

Excellent.

So the request existed.

Somewhere.

It even displayed the search number I had never received by email.

Status:

Received.

Thank you, USPS.

Very reassuring.

August passed.

September arrived.

And then this morning, September 12, at 8:12 a.m. KST (Kalamata Standard Time), my email chimed.

Ding!

USPS.

Subject:

Search Request Update.

Oh!

The machine had awakened.

Nearly a month after I filed the Missing Mail Search, the automated system finally decided to say hello.

The email informed me:

“The US Postal Service received the search request you submitted and it’s being processed.”

Wonderful.

For reference, the email itself helpfully listed:

Request Date: 08/13/2026

Today:

09/12/2026

I am glad we cleared that up.

For almost a month, I had been wondering whether USPS knew that I had asked USPS to find the mail that USPS could not find.

Now I knew.

They knew.

Perhaps the autoresponder had been on summer vacation.

Perhaps somebody had to wake it up.

Perhaps there are so many Missing Mail investigations that even the computer has a waiting list.

Who knows?

But then came the sentence that mattered:

“Your package has not yet been recovered.”

Recovered.

That is an interesting word.

Not:

Delayed.

Not:

Awaiting Customs clearance.

Not:

Moving through the network.

Recovered.

As in:

We are looking for it.

And we have not found it.

At that moment, I realized this was no longer the long settled match between ELTA and USPS.

We had moved into philosophy.

Remember what is inside the envelope?

Proof that Karen and I are alive.

Social Security asked us to prove that we exist.

We completed the forms.

Signed them.

Mailed them.

ELTA carried them from Kalamata to New York in four days.

And now USPS has opened an investigation to determine whether it can locate…

the proof that we exist.

There is something almost elegant about that.

Karen and I are here.

Our landlady sees us.

Our friends see us.

The cats most definitely see us, particularly around feeding time.

I am sitting here writing this.

All available evidence points toward continued existence.

Social Security, however, would like a piece of paper.

Unfortunately:

The piece of paper is MIA not Miami our old hunting grounds but missing in action.

So we have now reached the next logical stage of bureaucracy:

The proof that we are alive is missing.

And USPS is trying to prove that the proof exists.

You really cannot make this up.

The envelope itself could hardly be less exciting.

No money.

No jewelry.

No olive oil.

No feta.

Not even a suspicious Kalamata olive.

Just two government forms addressed to another part of the same government.

Yet after traveling almost 8,000 kilometers from Kalamata to New York in four days, the final couple hundred kilometers to Pennsylvania have turned into an expedition worthy of Shackleton.

And at this point, I no longer even know whom to blame.

USPS may have it.

Customs may have it.

A warehouse may have it.

It may be sitting underneath someone’s Christmas catalogue.

Perhaps it fell behind a sorting machine.

Perhaps it has made a life for itself in Queens.

USPS does not appear to know.

That, presumably, is why we now have a Missing Mail Search.

And USPS assures me:

“Every effort is being made to locate your item(s).”

Excellent.

Although considering it took almost a month for an automated email to tell me this, I am reluctant to ask what constitutes an effort.

Still, let us be optimistic.

Suppose they find it.

Suppose somebody reaches behind a sorting machine one morning and says:

“Hey, what’s this envelope from Greece?”

Suppose it resumes its epic journey.

Suppose it finally reaches Social Security before the February 2027 cutoff.

At this point, I would not be surprised if SSA opened it, looked at the dates and said:

“Yes, but how do we know they haven’t died since they signed this?”

And sent us another form.

Which would be fair, really.

We may need to prove that we survived the search for the proof that we were alive.

There is probably a form for that.

So forget the old scoreboard.

ELTA versus USPS was merely the opening act.

This has now become a collaboration involving Social Security, ELTA, USPS, Customs, the U.S. Embassy in Athens and the Missing Mail department.

All working together to answer one apparently very difficult question:

Are Karen and Nick still alive?

Yes.

We are.

Still here in Kalamata.

Still waiting.

Still checking the tracking number for reasons that are becoming increasingly difficult to explain.

And despite everything, one detail from the original four-part story continues to improve with age.

After the forms.

After almost 8,000 kilometers.

After ELTA.

After USPS.

After Customs.

After the Missing Mail Search.

After the missing-envelope investigation.

And possibly, before long, another request to prove that we survived the first request to prove that we were alive…

Social Security had a simple telephone procedure all along.

A procedure specifically designed to verify people like us overseas.

And the U.S. Embassy in Athens?

They told us we couldn’t use it.