Pondering Lost Things and a Memory I Can’t Shake

Carolyn J. Rose

"You Can't Have Everything. Where would you put it?"

Comedian Stephen Wright

When I was about ten and visiting my grandmother, I fell in love with a tiny metal grooming implement—a nail file attached to a tweezers. It was small and cute, and I wanted it. Never mind that, in those days, I used my teeth on my fingernails and couldn’t understand why anyone would suffer the pain of plucking their eyebrows. The point was, as I said, that I wanted it.

So I did what most ten-year-old kids do, I cajoled and pleaded and whined. I promised to use it and take care of it. I promised not to hurt myself with it. After what seemed like hours, my grandmother caved and gave it to me.

I put it in the pocket of my shorts and took off to show it to a friend, my fingers touching the cool metal now and then while I trotted along the summer-baked asphalt county road. As I hoped, she had nothing like it. She was envious. She intended to ask her parents to buy her one just like it.

And so, mission accomplished, I jogged along a dirt road, climbed across a stone wall, and cut through a field on the way home for dinner. At the far edge of the field I slid my hand in my pocket. To my horror, I discovered my treasure was gone.

I checked my other pockets. I backtracked along the faint path, hoping to see sunlight glint off its silvery finish. I stooped low. I cocked my head. I riffled the grass with my bare feet. I crawled and combed it with my fingers.

Nothing.

I returned the next day and the next one after that.

Nothing.

I never told my grandmother I’d lost that little tool. I suppose I knew she wouldn’t sympathize or offer to replace it. And, when I got older and spotted similar items in stores, I never purchased a one. They no longer seemed unique and I never felt the need to experience the thrill of ownership.

In the past sixty years I’ve lost plenty of other things—money, tickets, papers, books, and even—now and then—my way. Recently I’ve spent far too much time hunting for socks gone astray, pens I was sure I put on my desk, and keys I was positive had to be in the kitchen where I “always” put them. Some lost things I’ve found and some I haven’t. Some I’ve replaced and some I haven’t. Most things lost in my youth I have only vague memories of.

But the memory of that tiny implement hasn’t faded. It flits across my mind when I see a field of tall grass or file my nails or declare war on the rogue hairs in my eyebrows. I have no idea why the mental video of my ten-year-old self searching for it remains so clear and firmly embedded.

The mind is a strange and wonderful thing.

You can't have everything. Where would you put it? Steven Wright
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/steven_wright