One day toward the end of March I couldn’t find my pink eraser. A Pink Pearl eraser! I’d had it since HIGH SCHOOL…like when I was a STUDENT in high school. Right! Like 152 years ago! That’s a special achievement to hang on to something like that for so long!
How did I not use it up in the last 152 years, you ask? I don’t make many mistakes. HA! Actually, I don’t really use pencil much. I go in cycles. But I digress.
It was NOWHERE to be found. If you’ve ever been a teacher and had a substitute, no matter how wonderful they are—and several are actually friends of mine—it’s still a challenge not to wonder what they might have done with (name what you can’t find) while you were out (like let a kid borrow it who then took it with them mistakenly). I emailed my friend who had subbed for me—she hadn’t seen it. I was gone for two weeks recording IAs (junior presentations for the IB). Anything could have happened to it.
I looked under every piece of paper, book, behind the lamp, the amp, the monitor, in every drawer, under the desk and anywhere it might have bounced, every nook, every cranny. Nothing. Maybe I took it with me to the little office where we recorded the IAs! I emailed the media specialist and assistant, neither had seen it, but I went and looked for myself because nobody looks for something special to you in the same way you do. No criticism, just the truth. I, of course, also searched the files and crate I carried to and from the recording office.
This went on for days. Each new day was a fresh obsession with finding that eraser. At one point, a student came up to ask me a question during class, at which time I was folded up under the desk looking for this thing and naturally she asked what’s up. I told her and she commiserated with me. She was really sweet and nothing in her voice or facial expression reflected anything about how I’d likely lost my mind. It’s just an eraser (I would have thought if I had been in her place).
NEXT DAY, she brought me a special package of little pink erasers very much like the one I’d lost. HOW THOUGHTFUL! So very sweet and endearing. I love them now for a whole other reason. She even said she knew she couldn’t replace the one I was looking so hard for but thought at least I’d be able to use these moving forward. She’s right, nothing could replace that Pink Pearl eraser. But maaaaaan, did her kindness and thoughtfulness go a long way.
Eventually one let’s go of such and moves on. I did. Yes.
The end of school finally arrived. At home I was looking for something in the bottom of my book bag and finally just dumped the whole thing (it’s not that big and I don’t carry everything I own in it, I swear) onto the floor to find it. There among all the other little bits and pieces of things like a roll of dental floss, pencils, pens, packets of hand sanitizer wipes, glasses cloth, cough drops, ibuprofen, sticky notes, my school ID, WAS MY PINK PEARL ERASER!!!!!
I have never in my entire life understood and/or accepted the concept of inanimate objects. The eraser seemed to bow at the conclusion of its great disappearing act and was smiling ear to ear. I might have heard celebratory horn blasts: dup da da daaah! I could have sworn I looked through that book bag at LEAST a million times before. The other thing I grew up staunchly believing in is the power of the wee people to perform mischief with things like stealing one sock or hiding a hair band. So who knows how my eraser got there. (I know, I’m sure I dropped it in there for safe keeping.)
It’s obvious to say the sermon could be about what was believed to be lost was found. Many of you who’ve been reading my posts the last few weeks have commented on my “return.” I feel that profoundly myself. I have felt lost in so many ways over the last handful of years. The written word has found me again. Dup da da daaah!
Daily battles with doubt and the unknown about my future can do a number on me. But moments like this one, surprised by the weird happiness at finding something (in the grand scheme of things not all that “important”) like this eraser reminds me of all kinds of truths about “walking by faith” and trusting Providence and moving forward even with feelings of loss.
Very, very few things are every really “lost.”
