Work in Progress #34: The Wallet
I lost my wallet last month. This is the story of how I got it back.
My mother passed away in early August. She’d been ill for quite some time and in the end, passed away in a medically assisted sleep. Obviously it was, and has since been, a weird time for me and my family. My mom was a huge force in my life and had an enormous hand in forging the adult I’ve become. Her loss, while not completely unexpected, hit me really hard and messed with my head. So naturally, when I went grocery shopping the next day, my wallet somehow didn’t make it home. Worse, I didn’t realize it until I was about to go to work.
While I was at work, thoughts about who my mother was flooded my brain. The primary thing I thought about was her need to make sure her people were okay. She spent decades of her life as a nurse, caring for the sick and injured in various New York City hospitals. And she always made sure her children and their friends were cared for, taken care of. She opened her home to our friends, especially the ones who had troubles at home or on the street, and she would ask after them years after any of us had seen them. The middle of every phone call, no matter what was going on in my life, be it a complaint about work, love, or life, there would be a pause followed immediately by a question.
“But you’re okay, right?”
Anyway, I made my way back to the supermarket after my shift, and they hadn’t seen it. It’s a pretty distinctive wallet, brown leather with an image of the ruined Master Sword from the last Zelda game. If anyone had turned it in, it would have been obvious. Still, since I hadn’t gotten any fraud prevention notices or seen any charges I didn’t recognize, I told myself not to worry, that it would turn up or something. After a second day without it being turned in, though, my optimism started to fade. And by the third day, I’d cancelled most of my cards and tried to order replacements.
I’d taken a moment on Facebook to download some of my mom’s pics from her page when I got a message alert from someone I didn’t know. Normally, I ignore those, but something made me take a closer look. And in it, a woman named Michelle who managed a property about 30 minutes south of my supermarket told me she may have found my wallet. You can imagine how enthusiastic I was in getting it back. She texted me an address and I was on my way in minutes.
The property, as it turned out, was a senior citizen complex filled with people within five years of my mom’s age. After wandering for a moment, I found Michelle in the parking lot and she presented the wallet to me, completely intact and with everything still inside. She explained that one of the seniors found it during one of the group trips to the supermarket and grabbed it. That person intended to turn it in at the lost and found, but when they got home, found they still had it. They gave it to someone on the maintenance crew, who gave it to Michelle, and there we were.
I lost it. I wasn’t teary-eyed yet (I thought I’d save that for the car), but I babbled my way through many expressions of gratitude. Michelle asked me if I was okay, and I explained to her that losing my wallet was one more thing in a rough week. “Yeah, I saw that,” she said. “Sorry about your mom. She probably would have wanted you to have this.” I’m not one for religion or faith, but I can’t think of a thing I needed to hear more than that. Except for her parting words.
“You’ll be okay, right?”
It took me a full ten minutes to start the car to go home. And while I’m not a believer, it’s not hard to gather that by reuniting me with my wallet, my mom was looking out for me one last time.
That’s just who she is.
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