Lamenting Things Lost

Warning: Should you choose to read on, your likely to find the confessions of a foolish girl who cares too much for the things of this world.

The news came this past weekend confirming something I've allowed myself to be in denial about over the past 4 months. Luggage an airline lost on my trip home this summer is indeed lost for good. As my mom read the letter which had just arrived in the mail, the desire to hurl the phone against the opposing wall welled up inside, as though stopping the news from being heard would somehow stop it from being real. I wanted to get out, to go back out for another run until my legs could no longer move, until I'd given way to exhaustion. But I neither pitched the phone nor went for a run but laid in a sort of stunned silence. It could not be a surprise to me that this news would eventually come. I guess I had just hoped a more favorable message would take its place.

Sure, it's a bit of an over-reaction to some lost luggage but it's not just a lost bag, it's a bag that's been with me on nearly every excursion abroad and domestic. It's contents were not just things, but things carefully selected from Nepal, Thailand, and Taiwan; things not only for myself, but mainly for others. Gone with the things are the stories of where they were bought and those I met along the way. It's as though by losing the tangible reminder of people, places, and days gone by, somehow the memories will be lost forever too.

My thoughts drift to a particular pashmina shawl I had selected for a friend. I know that she would have not only like it for it's warmth, softness, and design, but for the story that came along with it of a woman I met on the side of a mountain after a sunrise trek in Nepal. Her pashmina creations, beautifully woven and depicting her original designs, were handmade on a specific kind of rickety old loom, one of 2 of it's kind still around in that region. I can still remember the smiles on the faces of her children who are fed, clothed, and sheltered by the hard work of their mother and the generosity of strangers who stop to purchase her handicrafts. I suppose my loss is still her gain, and that is, perhaps, more important.

My gaze now passes to my feet, propped up and clad in thick, wooly socks, one of the few remnants of my travels earlier this year. I'm suddenly reminded of the ancient kingdoms I visited where locals now peddle their goods outside crumbling palaces and guarded city walls. As my mind wanders back to a place much different from the one I presently find myself, I can still recall the shopkeepers who seemed as eager to engage the sparse tourists in conversation as they were to sell their goods. And how could I forget the pair of Tibetan refugee women who invited me to visit their village and my ten-year-old tour guide who saw the opportunity to escape boredom and to practice his English for an afternoon. Invitations were extended to tea, to trek, to trade.

I guess I'm proving that not all my memories have been lost with my things, though some will be a bit more difficult to preserve. Some favorite photos from my childhood and a travel journal were also among my vanished possessions. Weighing on me more than the 70 lbs. of missing baggage, is my hang-up with loss in general. Each visit home brings reminders of those no longer there and fears of those who may no longer be there the next time I return. As with my most recent journey home, the summer, too, quickly passed and with the autumn came the reminder of an aunt who died and with the previous month came the news of two relatives who passed away. Buried in work once again, I've been too busy to give it much thought, but somewhere my mind has been processing all these events and I think the most recent news, though not as significant as the loss of a person, served as a reminder of things lost throughout life and the sentiment that I've grown weary of losing.

Then, as I rode back to work this afternoon, I watched a boy with crippled legs labor his way across the crosswalk with his grandmother. Once again my world was brought back into perspective and I was reminded I have nothing worth complaining about. For the first time in 4 months I was able to let go of a foolish hope and a bitterness I'd been holding onto. I was finally ready to accept that the things lost were just things.