Lost and Found

    It seemed I could never lose anything – not permanently.  Objects might be lost, but they always turned up, usually within a year’s time.

     I first experienced this pattern when I went off to college.  I packed a pair of earrings that had belonged to my grandmother.  She gave them to me when I turned sixteen.  I wore these treasures on the Saturday nights I went out fraternity hopping.  One Sunday morning, I woke up missing an earring.  For the remainder of my freshman year, I walked around with my eyes cast downward, looking everywhere for that earring.  On the last weekend at school, my roommate volunteered to wash the floor after we packed our belongings and moved them out.  She felt the scrub rag catch on something as she wiped under the radiator.  My lost earring was found.

     Years later, another earring was lost.  This one wasn’t a family heirloom, but it had sentimental value.  My two friends pooled their money and purchased gold hoops for me.  I wore these earrings almost every day until one went missing.  Again, I searched everywhere.  It was winter, and big, cowl neck sweaters were popular.  I checked through the folds of my sweater necklines.  No earring.  I didn’t worry.  Surely, it would magically appear within the next twelve months. 

     That winter was particularly cold.  That’s why I was annoyed when when something else got lost – one of the buttons on my  winter coat.  I gripped my coat around me, waiting for the button to find its way back.

     It wasn’t long before I held my coat closed with one hand, but kept the other hand in my pocket.  My black leather glove was gone.  I couldn’t last through that bitter season with bare hands, so I went to the mall and bought new gloves.

     Finally, the weather warmed, and the snow slowly receded.  A friend called to tell me that she found a black leather glove, my glove, poking out of the snow piled along her driveway.  It was crumpled and lined white with salt.  After thawing and rinsing in warm water, no one could tell that the glove had spent the winter in the deep freeze.  The leather became supple again with the first wearing.  Now I had the luxury of two pairs of leather gloves.  The snow continued its retreat.  I found my gold hoop earring in the grass and my coat button along the edge of the front walk.
     Another time, I found something I didn’t realize was lost.  My bathtub drain was backed up, and no amount of liquid drain cleaner would clear the problem.  Before spending money on a plumber, I decided to purchase a drain snake and to follow the “how to snake a drain” instructions I found on the internet.  I spiraled the snake down every drain in the house and hit pay dirt in my bathroom shower.  A gold chain was entangled in the mass of hair that I pulled out of the pipes.  I recognized my necklace and welcomed its return.

     Yes, I was always lucky when it came to material possessions.  However, I was not so lucky when it came to matters of the heart.  I was married in my early twenties and divorced before I was thirty.  Though I dated in my thirties, I never met anyone with whom I could again commit to marry.  I accepted that love was lost forever, and I really didn’t miss it.  I was content with my career and my circle of friends.  Contentment turned to loneliness as I reached my fifties.  Through retirement, relocation, or death, I was losing co-workers, neighbors, friends, and relatives.  My parents died.  These losses were permanent; nobody would be back when the snow melted.

     On August 28, 2010, more than twenty-five years after losing out on love, I remarried.  Love didn’t return to me within one year, or five years or ten years.  But, when it did, it glittered like a loop of gold in the grass on a bright spring day, and I recognized it immediately.