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.
