The universe can allow for some great returns
Remarkable things happen sometimes. The lost becomes found. For example, my oldest went tubing down the Gaspereau River earlier this summer. He ruefully told us that the ride was great until he stopped and had to clamber off the tube and up the riverbank. His glasses were lost in the effort.
That’s a loss he concluded. Just like my father’s car keys in the same fast flowing river during his first — and probably only — tubing experience. They fell out of a pocket. I guess that’s why you have two sets.
Alan was luckier. Social media came to his aid — just as it often does when pets disappear. The Facebook page for Gaspereau River Tubing posted photos a week or so later of his blue spectacles. The missing was found.
Chris Gertridge, the expert on most things Gaspereau, knew that the water level was going to be raised by Nova Scotia Power, so he decided to take his annual hike along the riverbed. It was he who found the lost glasses and made No. 1 son happy. Such luck.
A year ago, a graduate student in geology at Acadia lost her cell phone on the edge of Pictou harbour. She considered the device gone, but posted something on her Facebook page anyway. The phone ended up being found, but the saltwater in the harbour did it no favours. Still it was returned.
A couple of years ago I foolishly left my wallet on top of my car after filling up with gas in Coldbrook. I hadn’t even had time to miss the thing when a handsome RCMP officer was at the back door returning my property. How lucky that the woman who found it had such a conscience. Luck again.
A woman in Massachusetts lost her purse for almost 20 years until it was fished out of a lake recently. Whoever found her bag took the cash, weighed it with rocks and threw it in the water. Fortunately two rings and ID belonging to Kim Flanders were still inside. Once again Facebook allowed the fisherman to find her.
Ishu and Laura Rao, who only got married in the last year, returned to the rubble of their home in Santa Barbara County, California to look for Laura’s wed- ding and engagement rings.
The house was incinerated in a fast-moving wildfire last month that destroyed nine other homes, according to Fox News. Ishu found the charred rings amid the ashes after figuring out where the kitchen sink had been. Then he got down on one knee and proposed a second time.
Finding the rings put everything into perspective, his wife said afterward. The discovery reduced the pain of the overall loss and reminded her of what really matters — the people in your life.
There are some great stories about pets returned after years of absence. A little parrot in California was missing for four years and eventually located due to his microchip speaking Spanish.
For all intents and purposes Tallulah the tortoise disappeared from Oxford, England for six months. She was located in a school field just 322 metres away from home. The nine-year-old pet hadn’t gone far, The Telegraph reported, but she’d crossed a busy roadway and endured two snowfalls. Once again her microchip assisted in finding her owner.
Even NASA has acknowledged it essentially lost a satellite 12 years ago. The spacecraft had gone into orbit in 2000 and functioned for five years finding cracks in the earth’s magnetic field, noted the Washington Post, then it went silent. By some quirk, an amateur sky watcher found it again earlier this year — still rotating.
Most of us have lost something valuable. Generally you just have to accept the void, but once in a while, the universe allows for some great returns — and they make the news.