Lost and Found

Hello from Mile Marker 11,050...

Where I've lost my grandmother's bracelet.

I don't know why I'm surprised.  

It's November.  The season of lost and found.

When I got dressed this morning, the bracelet's catch was loose, but I pressed it closed and headed out the door.

One lap around the block, and I noticed it was gone.

I retrace my steps, stopping back at Old City Coffee to ask the staff to keep an eye out.

"It's a small gold ID bracelet inscribed with my grandmother's name," I tell them.  They know my regular coffee order -- "small with almond milk" -- but now they take down my phone number too.  

It's a new level of intimacy, this shared loss.  

We've all lost things we love.  We all understand.

I circle around the block again, this time in reverse, trying to unwind time, as if the fragile bracelet would leap off the leaf-strewn sidewalk and back onto my wrist.  

It's hard to walk in this direction.  The slant of the sidewalk is wrong for my gait.  I hike my prosthetic over the incline, trying not to trip, scanning my eyes back and forth thorough the confetti of red and gold leaves.  I tell myself it's OK.  It's only a bracelet.  An object that belonged to my grandmother.  It's not her.

Still, I keep searching.

Just a glimmer.  A tiny spark.  That's all I need to find.

It is just a bracelet.  I know that.  But I'm sensitive to losing things.  It has always unsettled me, but even more so since the accident.  

And especially at this time of year.

Two mornings from now -- on November 9 -- as the sun rises over Washington Avenue, it will be exactly 12 years since I was hit by a truck at this intersection.

I still remember what I lost in that early morning sunlight -- my leg, my health, my life BEFORE -- and the many losses that unfolded in the days and years that followed.

But as time passes, I find that I'm more and more focused on what I've found AFTER.

And all that's found me, too :)

Family.  Friends. Community.  A whole team of helpers and healers.  (You know who you are!)  And this life we've built together.

Celebrating my "Alive Day" reminds me to pause, look back, and give thanks for the distance we've covered.

To embrace where I am now,

Even in the struggle.

To find gratitude and hope,

Even in the smallest steps.

At Mile 11,051 -- give or take a few of those steps -- I arrive home, eyes still cast downward, feeling this newest loss like a small hole in my heart.  

I've swept over every inch of sidewalk.  The bracelet is nowhere, seemingly vanished into the autumn air.

Then, I reach down to adjust the waistband of my pants.  

And something shiny falls into my fingers.  The unlatched bracelet.  Lost and found!

Sometimes, miraculously, things find their way back.

Every year is a privilege.  I hope I never lose that perspective.

Happy Year 12.

Thank you for walking with me!
Rebecca

(P.S.  Most of these photos were taken after the bracelet was found.  Some feelings are too intense to capture on film. xo)