Things That Went Missing

You know that parlor game where you name the person, living or dead, whom you would most like to have dinner with? Well, this is not about that. This is about mysteries.

My fantasy is that there will be a great day of revelation when I can get the answers to all my unanswered questions. The unsolved mysteries of life. The deep secrets that have nagged at me. No, not how Stonehenge got there. Not the crop circles. Certainly not the Big Bang.

The missing pieces from
the unicorn puzzle

My unanswered questions are deeper questions, question that keep you tossing and turning at night. Like, where are those two missing pieces from the unicorn puzzle? Also the ibuprofen pill I dropped in the downstairs bathroom last August. I looked for it, on my hands and knees, for at least 4.2 minutes. Where is it? 

These are Things That Went Missing, and I want to know where they went. Even if they no longer exist, the unanswered question is, where did they go?

To put a fine point on it, this fantasy of finding out what happened excludes the things that I lost. On the great day of revelation, when I get the answers, I don’t have to know about the glove I dropped on the subway, or the cell phone that I left in the movie theater on 48th Street. I know what happened to them: I lost them.

But there are other things that I didn’t lose. Like the cat brush I mailed to Rachel when she lived in Brooklyn. It was a great present. It was a surprise. It never arrived. Nor was it returned to me by the post office. It is a Thing That Went Missing, and by god, I want to know what happened to it.

The cleaver with wooden handle

Until now I never actually made a list. But I’m going to. What happened to the teddy bear that disappeared from my tent at Camp Anna Behrens when I was 10? And that roll of film from the 1984 vacation in Port Huron? I mailed it in to the processing place and they “lost” it. Well, it went somewhere, and I want to know where. And I definitely want to know about the meat cleaver with the wooden handle that was just no longer in the knife drawer one day. 

I’m pretty patient about these things. And optimistic. Long after others might have considered it hopeless, I believe a Thing That Went Missing will turn up. Tom’s two favorite mugs, for example. They are here. They will surface. For the first year I was sure I would come across one or the other—maybe on the shelf by the washing machine, maybe rolling around in the back seat of the car. Even now, going on Year Three, I’m confident the mugs will be found. Perhaps a little less confident than before—I admit it—I bought replacements.

The cat with tourmaline eyes

Some things that went missing are found, and, as noted by Jesus in the parable of the lost sheep (Luke 15:3), there is great rejoicing when this happens. Like the tourmaline gemstone that serves as one of the cat eyes in the Steuben glass cat that reposes on the mantel. One day, shortly after we moved into the house, I noticed he had only one eye. What?! When did that happen?! Tom and I searched, and searched, and searched. No dice. Also no cat’s eye. Then, about four months later, I found the little thing in the corner of my jewelry box. Vaguely I remembered putting it in a safe place (the surest way to lose something, I might add) before we moved. Much rejoicing.

The missing earrings

In my fantasy of the great revelation, the missing socks (that universal experience) will also be accounted for. Their mates are somewhere—and I will sit down with the God of Missing Things and find out where. Until then, I keep the singleton socks in a special little cloth bag in the bottom drawer. Similarly, I keep the singleton earrings in that special section of the jewelry box where I found the cat’s eye.

Searching for lost things, holding on to the unmated socks--these are the works half of the faith and works doctrine (“faith without works is dead”—James 2:20). We have to do our part: I hold on to the unmated socks, I continue to search for the mugs, I go to the post office and ask about the lost packages. And I am optimistic (faith) that they will be found.

Most of all I dream that on that great day of revelation, all will be found.