Lost and Found

I lost and found something. I walk by that stinky lost and found table at the school almost daily and really never gave it a second thought. But one day I found something there that was more than expected.

I found a mitt. I suppose you were thinking it would be more profound. But it is profound.

Our daughter is one of the most responsible kids you will meet. At 13, she has figured a lot out. One thing she has mastered is the art of holding tight to possessions she loves.

To my knowledge, she had never lost anything of value in her short life. Then one day, she lost a mitt. She was about 9 and those mitts were new and they were warm. She lost just the right one which she had removed to hold her hot chocolate. Kids went by on their toboggans stirring up the snow surrounding them and the mitt was buried.

Her reaction was one reserved for people who value their possessions. She cried, she dug and she cried some more. She had already grown to love her new mitts in one day.

We checked that lost and found that whole winter and it never turned up. The mitts were replaced with similar ones but she just wanted that purple and white one back which, of course, the store had sold out of.

It hit me that her reaction was the same as mine on the day I was washing out the paint jars in grade 5. My mother had just given me a new charm for my charm bracelet. I loved it. It was blue and white and made of ceramic. I loved it so much I wanted to wear it to school to show my friends. I was told not to, but I snuck it out anyway. That charm fell into that dirty painted sink and down the drain. I watched in slow motion as it swirled to the depths inside of the murky water.

My teacher didn’t understand the importance of that moment for me as I cried, dug through the water and cried some more. I knew it would never be retrieved. I learned a valuable lesson that day. The lesson was to hold on to my possessions until they leave us. There is no sense in thinking about and wishing for a different outcome. What is done, is done.

And yet, I found that mitt. It would not longer fit her hand at 4 years lost, but it was there. I took it home and remembered my daughter’s response to the loss of her prized warm mitt. I looked at it and remembered my charm. I hadn’t thought about it since grade 5.

I threw the mitt away before my daughter could get home. She may not have cared to see it, she may not have remembered the day. But, I know, she remembers the lesson. Just maybe, if she saw that that purple and white mitt come back, what she could lose is the lesson instead.