October 31, 2010

• On losing and finding...

  

  This past week was a bit of an emotional roller coaster.  It started on Friday night of the week prior.  After an exhausting week of school, I came home early and crashed.  When I woke up again around 7pm, my ring was gone.  I was only mildly alarmed until I searched all the usual spots in my room and realized, it was REALLY missing!

  I stood in my room, closed my eyes and scrolled through my memories like microfiche, and then, there it was.  I was in the women's bathroom at school.  I had taken my ring off to really wash my hands.  They had turned the hot water on, so I was able to really scrub.  Then someone with blond hair came out of the stall.  I wanted to get out of the way (only one sink), so I grabbed two paper towels, dried my hands, and quickly left the bathroom.  And then there was the image - not in my memory, but still as clear as day, my ring, forgotten on top of the soap dispenser.

  At that point, I called our assistant principal who happened to be at school.  He was kind enough to go into the women's room and check the exact spot I had explained to him.  No ring.  He checked under the sink.  No ring.  On the floor.  No ring.  In the drain.  No ring.  No RING!!!  This is when my head started to sweat, and my stomach did somersaults.  I literally told my AP that I was "freaking out."  He suggested some options, but really, we had to wait till Monday morning to check our building's main offices since everyone had gone home.

  Next was the difficult phone call.  Randall.  I was hesitant to tell him, but my need for emotional support was greater.  He asked me the standard questions, "Did you check your...?" and then assured me that it was just a thing, and that we should pray and wait till Monday like my AP had said.  Then came the sad realization that the ring was missing, and yet there was also an overwhelming wave of denial that said, "The ring is right here!"  That second voice started to overpower my life.  When reason and intelligence said, "The ring is missing," that second voice always chimed in and caused me to search maniacally - even in places where the ring had no possibility being.

  R came over that night, and we searched the apartment a bit, but we mainly sat saddened and stunned.  I pressed him, and when I did, I could see he was sad, frustrated and angry, but he made sure that I never felt any of this directed at me.  Me, I mainly beat myself up for ever taking it off of my finger, and I lamented that one moment when I had.

  ***

  After a sleepless night filled with dreams where people found the ring and didn't, we made the commute back to my school.  We headed straight for the bathroom and spent twenty minutes probing the drain with paper towels.  I felt bad that the first introduction Randall had to my school was of the women's faculty bathroom complete with an old-style urinal (it used to be a men's room).  After a fruitless search, we had chai and samosas in the back seat of my car, and R decided it would be a good idea to head to the beach.

  The beach was good.  We hiked dunes, sat on the shore, and acted silly.  It made me think of my favorite e.e. cummings poem, maggie and milly and molly and may, especially for its last stanza:

  For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)
  it's always ourselves we find in the sea

  We headed home, feeling refreshed, and I was reminded of the beautiful love that the ring represented.  I cherished the fact that I had R to play, love and grow with, and simply being with him seemed to erase all need for my ring.

  The next day continued in the same way except we had to start breaking the news to friends that we had lost the ring.  This was actually an interesting thing for me, though, because we started to discover that an alarming number of people had incredibly dramatic lost ring stories.  It was actually like this secret society into which we were inducted.  Membership included comprehensive empathy and worldwide recognition of immense sadness of losing such a small precious thing.

  ***

  Monday morning, I awoke earlier than usual with immense optimism.  The turmoil of Saturday had turned to peace on Sunday and burgeoning hopefulness on Monday.  When I arrived at school, a coworker had already gone around to the various offices to ask if anyone had turned in a ring.  Nothing.  Crestfallen but not crushed, I assured myself that it was because it was too early.  I had placed a sign in the bathroom with a description of the ring and my phone number, so I was sure that someone who had seen the ring would contact me.  As the day wore to a close and my phone stayed silent, my hope began escaping.

  It started to seem absurd to me that people could walk around not knowing anything.  'How could they not know how sad I was?  How could they not know anything about my ring?!' I snapped at my students last period, and they backed away knowing not knowing exactly why I was snippy.  My day ended with a sense of helplessness, and after spending an hour in the camera room watching security archives, I became convinced that I was going crazy.  There was no one in the bathroom with me.  No evil person had followed me in and taken my ring.

  ***

  That night we prayed harder than we had before.  I started praying that God would bend the time-space continuum and make the ring miraculously appear.  And after that, we ripped up my room.  It was like a drug bust. Baseboard heat covers came off, backs of dressers were pried off, flashlights...and lots of dust bunnies.  One motivator was this picture:

  

  It had been taken during our school field trip to York College.  I was overjoyed when I saw the ring on my hand because that told me I had worn the ring out of my school, but then it also unsettled me because it meant that the ring left my school.  I called the lost and found at the college, but no one had turned in such a thing.  This was even more distressing because now I was toying with the possibility that the ring had come off my hand, which seemed unlikely since it was such a perfect fit.  By the next morning, my head literally hurt from all the thinking I was making it do.  I couldn't keep anything straight anymore, and my memory kept bending and deceiving me.

  By Tuesday night, I had made the decision that I would make one more effort before conceding to the ring's loss.  I used a program on my Mac which couldn't have made making a poster easier.  (See above.)  There was actually a template for a lost dog poster, so I replaced the picture of the dog with my ring, and then made plans to hang them strategically at York and at my school.  While one or two people made disheartening remarks about the incapacity of people to return things of value, my picture poster really pulled at people's heartstrings.  At this point, the school safety officers, the custodians, my coworkers, and even some of the other school's teachers were rooting for me. 

  And then it was noon.  My school aide walked in with my secretary.  The school aide had been absent for two days, so she had just seen my posters.  "I have your ring."  This sentence totally did not register.  So she said it again.  Again, I stood dumbstruck and in unbelief.  She then went on to describe how it had been left on the soap dish Friday late afternoon, and she took it home planning to bring it back on Monday, but then she had gotten sick.  In an effort not to lose it, she had put it in her jewelry box, but promised to bring it the next day.

  Wow.  I'm not sure I heard much else at that point, but I was overjoyed.  She apologized profusely for forgetting it, but I assured her that she was my hero for finding it.  I hugged her and hugged her again until my students started asking what was going on, claiming they needed hugs as well.  As for me, knowing that the ring was found left me entirely speechless.

  And the next day, just as I had prayed, there was the ring on my finger.  Out of the time and space continuum, balanced on the weight of many people's prayers...and this time, I'm never taking it off.

   

  • 9:45 am
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