It was the weekend, and we came back late from skiing the night before. I had fallen asleep on the drive home and was still sleepy while trying to get everyone and everything into the house. That’s when it happened.
The next day there was a huge snowstorm that started in the wee hours and did not stop until late afternoon. Everywhere was covered in a thick white blanket of fluffy snow. I always love that initial snowfall. It looks so magical.
Feeling cozy inside with the blankets and our faux fireplace on, I nestled into a chair and did some virtual window shopping. That’s when I realized.
I checked my bag, our ski bags, the truck, my coat, and all over the house. It wasn’t anywhere. I double and triple-checked everything again, and began to feel the panic prickling and bubbling up inside me. I called the gas station where we stopped on the way home to fill up. Nothing. I even checked the truck bed, which was an unlikely place, but you never know. Still nothing.
I had lost my wallet.
Was it the wallet itself that I feared losing? Was it the credit cards or money in it that I’d have to replace? Was it the medical cards? Bank cards? Or even all our insurance and COVID cards? No, none of those things. None of these things mattered at that moment. What mattered, was an old picture ID of my mother and a small little charm in the shape of a red cardinal that my sister-in-law gave me; both were kept in my wallet as a remembrance of my mother who passed tragically two and a half years before.
I say tragically because she got sick at the height of the pandemic when health care was mainly focused on curing COVID-19 patients, leaving other health needs under-serviced. It was also then that the border was closed between Canada, where my Mom lived (and where I am from originally), and the U.S., where I now live with my husband and three children.
During this time, she fell ill, and the services needed to find out what was wrong with her were not available in the timeframe that she needed care. And I couldn’t travel north to help or be there with her. In the end, she took a turn for the worse and by the latter part of 2021 (fortunately, the borders opened), I was able to be at her hospital bedside to hold her hand as she took her last few breaths of life. My mother was my only family growing up. We lived with my grandfather, but he passed decades ago, just leaving us two against the world for a while. Then we had the good fortune of finding my (long-lost) half-sister and were overjoyed at this (re)union. She was there with me at Mom’s bedside that day.
My sister also lives in the U.S. but we live in different States. It was her wife, my sister-in-law, who gave me that cardinal. The one I always keep in my wallet along with that picture ID. The cardinal is significant in that my mom was very fond of this bird. She decorated her living space with paintings and trinkets of cardinals here and there. I must admit, it is nice to see this beautiful bird, with its vibrant red plumage, against a thick white coat of snow in the background. The cardinal charm was a gift representing my mom. A symbol of her.
And that was now lost. Perhaps forever. My two little tokens to remember the one parent I had. It was then that I felt the grief of her loss. I felt a severance from her in losing those things as if those things were keeping me tethered to her somehow. In my mind they were. I have other little things of hers, although not much, that I keep to feel connected to her. But I was not prepared to lose some of what little I had.
Mourning is very much an individual thing. Everyone deals with loss differently. Or rather, the process is the same but how you feel is different. I’ve evolved to a place where material things are not as important to me anymore. But things with sentimental value, things that may be the only thing I have left of someone who meant something to me, hold significance.
I was in despair at this realization. I felt grief. A lot was going on in my life the year my mom died. Drastic life changes and challenges. So, grieving was something that surged through me in spurts at the most sporadic times. More death came two years later (to the day of my mom’s passing), when my best fur friend of 12 years died. My dog, Maya. My light in the darkness. With that compounding, I feel I now have double the grief to process and I’m not sure I’ve taken the time to do that. It arrives of its own accord. And the day I lost my wallet was one of those times.
Then a very unusual thing happened. I decided to move on from that moment of despair. I decided to take a step back and let it be. It was as if I took control of my emotions instead of my emotions taking control of me. I suppose it would have been completely warranted to spend the time feeling sad at the loss of my mom’s things, knowing that it was directly correlated to the sadness of losing her. But, at that moment, I decided to take my feelings and gently put them on a shelf. Instead, I got the kids dressed in their snow pants, and my husband and I got dressed in ours. And we all went outside to enjoy the wonderful snowfall and play in the snow.
Then the unexpected.
Yes, dear reader, this story has a happy ending. I did find my wallet.
I was helping my husband clear the driveway by shoveling the path and around the truck. It did cross my mind briefly that it could have fallen out of the truck the night before and the snow could have buried it, but there was no intention there. It did increase my motivation for the task though. It turns out that brief spark of thought that passed through like a zephyr, without intention or expectation, from a calm mind, was a slight glimpse of what was to come. There, just outside the passenger side door, buried under inches of thick, dense snow was a flash of color. The same color as my wallet.
Relief, gratitude, and joy washed over me, and I held it tight like a hug. I was reunited. Not with my credit cards, money, bank cards, or anything replaceable and material. I was reconnected with those two little things, the ID and the charm. The two little pieces that remind me of my mom. Her smile, her affection, her silliness, her warm embrace. Her love of a beautiful bird said to be a symbol of the presence of a lost loved one. A spiritual messenger, she is now the cardinal. A reminder to me that she is always there, and a reminder that I am loved and not alone.
A xo
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