Among other things, I will remember 2019 as the year of lost and found.
In July, I lost my wedding ring. It was my third wedding ring in 39 years. The first was lost in Cambridge in 1994 after wearing it for 14 years. The second was lost while snorkelling in Hawaii in 2013. Losing my wedding ring for the third time was especially distressing, since it was one of a matching pair of custom rings Judy and I gifted to each other in 2015, each cast in 14k gold with a Celtic double loveknot pattern.
I discovered the ring was missing on a Friday evening when I bent my thumb under my palm to fiddle with the ring, as I often do. Feeling its absence, I immediately felt sick to my stomach. Where had I lost the ring? And how had I allowed this to happen? Having lost a few pounds as I usually do when training for a marathon, I had noticed recently that the ring was sliding over my knuckle more easily than usual. I should have taken the precaution of putting the ring in a safe place until I regained some weight. I searched my mind for how and where I may have lost the ring, and thought back to the run I did with our running group the day before. It had been a cool evening with pouring rain, and perhaps the ring had slipped off my wet, shrivelled finger while I was running. I resolved to take my bike out and travel the same route the next day, hoping against hope that I would be able to spot it—and assuming that no one else had picked it up in the intervening 36 hours.
Something—maybe hope—motivated me to search… as a necessary demonstration of diligence and an acknowledgement of the possible.
The next day, Saturday, I remembered that I had been pulling weeds from our garden on Friday morning. What if the ring had slipped off then? Before jumping on my bike to retrace the path of my Thursday evening run, something—maybe hope—motivated me to search through the two garbage cans full of weeds I had collected the day before, as a necessary demonstration of diligence and an acknowledgement of the possible. And there, two-thirds of the way through the second of the cans, I found the ring. You can imagine the eagerness and elation with which I shared the good news with Judy!
In October, I lost my complete set of keys, including car key and house key. I didn’t discover their loss until 24 hours after I had last used them. After searching the house, I began to assume that I had lost them the previous evening when I had walked our dog. The last I could recall they were in the pocket of my coat; most likely they had fallen out when I reached into the pocket to pull out a poop bag to clean up after the dog. By this time, it was night, so Judy and I took flashlights and walked up and down the street where I walked the dog, searching for my keys. No luck.
The next day, I continued the search. After I thoroughly searched the house one more time, I went back to the street. Wind and rain had brought many leaves down overnight, and I had to turn over those leaves to search the boulevard where my keys might have fallen. Again no luck. I had been raking leaves in our back yard the day before, and had filled three paper yard waste bags. Remembering where I had found my ring earlier in the year, I emptied all three bags and sifted through the leaves and debris. Still no keys. Finally, as a desperate last resort—again, more to satisfy my own sense of due diligence than out of expectation it would be fruitful—I completed a online police report for “Lost Property Under $5000”. Three hours later, I received a call from the police station. “This very seldom happens,” the police officer said, but a neighbour woman had discovered my keys while walking down the street and had turned them in to the police. Again, I quickly called Judy to share the astounding news with her.
As I tell you these stories, I am reminded of other stories recorded in the Gospel of Luke, a series of lost and found stories: The lost sheep, the lost coin, the lost son. In each story, the searcher displays an earnestness and abandonment in the pursuit of the lost article that parallels or surpasses my own diligence in searching for my lost ring and keys. We are told that the woman who lost the coin lit a lamp, scoured the house, “looking in every nook and cranny” until she found it. While Jesus told these stories to illustrate and exemplify his relentless pursuit of lost souls, especially those marginalized and excluded from mainstream Jewish society, the single-mindedness the searcher displays in Jesus’ stories should inspire all of us who have lost something of great value. Because, as distressed as I was to have lost my wedding ring and my keys, many others have lost items far less readily replaced: Love, security, health and hope.
“The capacity for hope is the most significant fact of life. It provides human beings with a sense of destination and the energy to get started.”
Norman Cousins
Of all the great losses, none strikes so closely at the heart of what it means to be human as the loss of hope. To lose a love, and have no hope that one day another person will return your affection? To have your sense of security shattered, and have no hope that measures can be taken to make your existence secure? To lose your health, and have no hope of relief or recovery? Norman Cousins said, “The capacity for hope is the most significant fact of life. It provides human beings with a sense of destination and the energy to get started.” Not surprisingly, depression and hopelessness are closely linked, as people become demoralized at the lack of effectiveness of their efforts to cope with their symptoms.
Hope can be defined as passion for the possible. I searched through the garbage cans full of weeds because I believed it was possible that I would find my ring there—even if I didn’t quite expect it. I filed a police report when I lost my keys because I believe it was possible that someone would have turned them in. My passion for the possible created an opportunity for hope, a pathway for action that allowed me to do something to address my dilemma. Cognitive theorists define hope as a function of pathways and agency thinking. “Pathways thinking relates to a [person’s] belief that she or he knows how to achieve a goal, once the problem has been made clear. Agency thinking involves the [person’s] belief that he or she is capable of achieving that goal, and has the energy to do it.”
Therapists and professional counsellors work to build hope in those who are despairing of change by discovering a direction for resolution and engaging the client’s energy to move in that direction. I would add one more required element if those who have lost hope are to regain it: the assurance that they are not alone in this. There are many takeaways from the Christian story of the birth of Christ, but one is that God wanted his suffering people to know that they were not alone. “‘Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,’ which means, ‘God is with us.'” As the lyrics of Mumford & Sons song Timshel express so poignantly, as your brothers and sisters we cannot move mountains for you but we can hold your hand and tell you, “You are not alone in this.” If you do not have a friend you can reach out to when you are feeling hopeless, call your local support line. Here in London, Ontario the number is 519-601-8055.
2019 was a year of lost and found for me. For those of you who have lost their passion for the possible, my desire is that 2020 will be a year of finding hope.
Unless otherwise noted, all text and photos © 2019 Edwin Wilson. Banner photo by Paul Gorbould. Some rights reserved.
