Several weeks after Sandy died, I wanted to play one of our favorite Paul Simon albums. Most of our CDs are in a 400-CD jukebox. I spun the dial to the CD I wanted; we listened to it frequently so I knew where it lives. But it wasn't there. The display jumped over its number, indicating there was no CD in the slot. I opened the door to look, and the CD was gone. I assumed Sandy must have had it out to copy it to her computer, so I checked the stacks of loose CDs near her desk in the TV room, as well as the loose CDs on top of the stereo. For months, every time I came across a disc, I thought maybe that was it. I assumed it would show up, and eventually, I decided I'd just replace it the next time I'm in a music store. But its absence nagged at me.
Then, a couple of months ago, I wanted to listen to music but didn't know what I wanted. I spun the dial on the jukebox, watching the display for something that appealed. And there it was, right where it was supposed to be. I felt a little crazy as I played it, but rejoiced in the reunion.
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| I adore this photo of Sandy and her older sister, and thought this was a great excuse to use it. After all, I keep scratching my head,figuratively, over these missing things. |
I don't remember why I started looking for the small blue Japanese cups that usually sit on the cluttered desktop in the living room. But I couldn't find either of them. I wondered whether Sandy had given them to someone in her last week at home. Or if I'd carried them to some other room in a fit of cleaning. Again, I searched the house. My mind kept at it for weeks and weeks, trying to think where I might have taken them and why. I'd interrupt whatever I was doing when I suddenly thought of a new location I hadn't looked. But I never found them.
And then a few weeks ago, as I put a paid bill in the desk cubby to be filed later, just as I've done dozens of times in the past months, I saw one of the cups. It's right where it was supposed to be, where it should have been all along, where I looked for it. It's still full of foreign coins from our travels. I haven't found its mate, though every now and then I turn the house upside-down again looking for it.
Now I'm missing Bananagrams, the Scrabble-like game Sandy's mom gave us a few years ago. With its bright yellow banana-shaped case, it's hard to miss. It's not on the game shelf, where it should be. I know we took it with us to Ocean Shores last April and we may have had it with us on vacation in May, but the other games we took with us are all back in place. Again, I've looked everywhere, dug through luggage and camping boxes and anything else it might have been stuffed in. There's a very slim chance we left it in a motel room, but I doubt it. I suspect one of these days it will just appear on the game shelf again.
I felt a little better after I read one of my books on communicating with the other side. It included stories of people who were suddenly missing things and then having them return. In one anecdote, a woman laid a pen down on the bed and left the room for a minute; it was gone when she returned, and she searched everywhere before finally just asking out loud for it to reappear. When she walked back into the room, it was on the bed again. That felt familiar.
Though it makes me crazy to miss things, I kind of like the idea that Sandy wanted to listen to comfort music, hold on to her Japanese cups, play Bananagrams. It would be hypocritical of me to ask her to be present but deny her access to our things.
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