Tales Of The Lost

On the way home from work yesterday, I started thinking about all of the things I've lost over the past few years.  As a rule, I usually end up finding whatever it is that I've lost.  It might take a few weeks or even months of searching, but it will eventually turn up.  My Mom always says "You'll find it when it's meant for you to find it."  And she's true.

Unfortunately for me, the things I lose are usually sentimental things.  A couple of years ago, I lost a small photo album that contained pictures of Grandma and a dear friend's baby daugther.  The pictures were taken when my friend took the baby to visit Grandma in the nursing home.  There were also a couple of family pictures in there, too.  The pictures were priceless irreplaceable. Since my friend and her family lose things like me, I'm sure the negatives were lost, too.  I started looking for this album in May.  We scoured the entire house, including the basement.  In July, we rennovated my bedroom and completely cleared it out, and still couldn't find the album.  I was honestly sick to my stomach over losing this.  A few months later, I had gone down to the basement to get a briefcase to take to a meeting.  As I was picking it up, something caught my eye - inside the briefcase was the missing photo album.  Mom and I both had looked in that briefcase previously when we were looking for the album, and honestly did not see it in there.  The date that I found the missing photo album was September 23rd -- Mom's birthday and Grandma and Grandpa's anniversary date.

Another tale of the lost involves a sterling silver cross.  I'd bought this particular cross because it was different from most crosses and crucifix pendants; I really can't describe it to you in words, but suffice to say it's just different.   I wore this day and night for about two years, until one day I noticed it wasn't hanging around my neck.  As with the photo album, we turned the house upside down.  I retraced my steps and went back to every place I'd been in the previous couple days but we couldn't find it.  I went to the mall and bought one about 75% of the way identical.  I wore it, but it just wasn't the same.  A month or so later, Mom was down in the floor by the hall pantry, cleaning up some dried [uncooked] beans that had fallen from the bag into the tracks of the pantry sliding door.  She spotted something silver in the tracks and fished it out.  Yes, you guessed it - it was the missing cross.  The date she found the missing was cross was the day that Bertie Lee Campbell, one of our dearest friends from Fourth Avenue Church, had died.  Bertie Lee was a remarkable little lady, and even though we only had the pleasure of knowing her for a few short years, she left such a great impression on my family.  Here's another piece of trivia about Yours Truly: Bertie Lee was the person that gave me the knickname of Puddin.