Some thoughts on loss

For those of you who are Facebook friends, you’ve already learned about my loss (side note, facebook is a great place to go if you’re looking for instant comfort from a fairly large group of people also, on facebook you only have to recount your painful experience once and move on). If you haven’t been frequenting the Facebook, let me quote my entry:

Sitting in Chicago O'Hare wondering if I should mourn the loss of all my electronics collectively or individually. Oh MacBook pro, there was still so much I had wanted to do with you. iPad, I should have done more than play Angry Birds on you. I know that now. Canon, a summer with you wasn't enough and Kindle, even though you will be replaced, it wll never be the same.

How do I articulate this experience in a way that conveys the genuine pain and sense of betrayal I’ve felt as losing some pretty valuable nifty gadgets. I’ve never had anything major stolen from me in my life. I lost a couple of cheap in-dash stereos while we were living in Arizona, but apart from that, we’ve never had a break-in, never been mugged, nor have we every been the victims of identity theft or Internet fraud. When you go through life insulated from some of the seedier elements of civilization, it’s pretty easy to have a generally favorable view of one’s fellow man. I’ve always said that most people are good, that most people, when given an opportunity to do the right thing, will do it. It’s harder to maintain that perspective when confronted with the minority who don’t do the right thing, but, you know, I still believe it, in part because of how people have treated me upon learning of my loss, but mostly I still believe it because I want to believe it.

We discovered the loss while we were standing around the parking lot of the car rental place. Needless to say, I panicked. In that moment of realization, I believed that what I had lost was irreplaceable. I was overwhelmed by both the financial and emotional cost and I have to say I didn’t take it well. My wife said that she’s seen me angry (plenty of times), and she’s seen me sullen (plenty of times too), but she had never seen me feeling so helpless and distraught before. I’m sorry my kids had to see it happen; however, I think there are some advantages to seeing one’s dad as human.

 It’s not necessarily a bad thing to find yourself in a situation beyond your control. It teaches you humility, and it teaches you to rely on others. The guy in front of me looked like the smartphone kind of guy and I asked him if he could look up the number to the hotel and let me call. He wasn’t having any luck finding it. Unasked, the lady behind me started to do the same and offered me her phone while I called. There are good people out there, and I believe most people want to help if they can. Comfort can be found in the company of strangers.

I called the hotel and told them that my bag had been left in the parking lot. They went and looked around for it, but there was nothing to be found. All of it was gone.

The Inventory of my bag as far as I can remember:

Canon S95 and my very cool gorilla tripod

Ipad and the spiffy new Ipad Keyboard I had just bought the day before.

MacBook Pro

Ipod Nano

Kindle

Nook

A couple of memory cards

Julie’s Cell Phone

A Moleskine Notebook with a couple of really good story ideas (I think I can remember them all)

Luggage scale

Thor: The Mighty Avenger Volumes 1 and 2 (I was pretty happy to find both of those at Borders during their closing out sale. In some ways I’m most ticked off at losing those. I was really looking forward to reading them on the plane. It’s kind of funny the things we fixate on.)

Fortunately we still had our little Ipod touch and the Boston Airport offered free Internet access, so we were able to change some key password details and hopefully circumvent any future issues with identity theft or financial risk. Most importantly, all of our cash and travel documents—passports and birth certificates were safely tucked away in my nifty travel wallet. It took a lot of reflection and no small amount of prayer, but In the end, I don’t feel like I lost anything I couldn’t afford to lose.

I can’t imagine how tempting it might have been for someone to discover such a treasure trove in one place. I’m not angry with the person who took it. I don’t know their situation, nor do I know their intentions. I do feel a certain amount of pity for the person who is in such a place where they either feel they need to steal or their hearts have become so hardened by choice and circumstance that they feel no remorse over the pain or discomfort they might cause another. A heart hardened to the suffering of others is a heart hardened to everything. Empathy is necessary to feel love for others and to feel the love others have for you. At the end of the day, I can replace what’s been lost, but that person who took it will have a much more difficult time recovering from the loss in their life.

Let me be clear, as much as I lament the replacement cost of those things, what irks me more is the loss of some very dear pictures, especially the pictures we took at Miranda’s baptism. Most of the other stuff on the computer was backed up, and sure it’ll be a pain to go through all of my accounts to change passwords and protect my identity, but even that is, at most, an inconvenience.

We will be getting a new computer soon, an iMac instead of an MacBook this time—much more difficult to lose or leave behind, and eventually we may replace the iPad or get one of those nifty new MacBook Airs, but that won’t be for some time yet. As far as the camera’s concerned, I’m really glad that we bought it, but my Nikon SLR still works pretty well and I can’t say I see the need to get a new point and shoot anytime soon. The Kindle will be missed, but we’ve got a few dozen books lying around the apartment and, even though I had pretty much turned my back on paper, it’s really the story that matters most. No doubt I’ll get a new Kindle some time down the road, but for now, it’s far from a need.

We’ve already replaced Julie’s phone and getting her phone number back couldn’t have been easier

So, in the end, no big deal, right? Well, yes and no. Even though I’ve come to terms with the stuff that was lost, I believe that the experience of losing it could, potentially, be life changing. In some ways it feels kind of silly and trivial to talk about this as a life changing experience, but I think it could radically alter the course of my life, but only if I choose to let it. As I’ve said, it would be an easy thing to replace all the items I lost on that day. It’s not that I’m flush with cash, but I’ve got enough saved up that we could find a way to make it work. I had done a back-up just before we left for Nova Scotia, so apart from the pictures I had taken while we were away, we’ve got most of that stuff at our disposal. I can’t help but be grateful that I had been so diligent about blogging while we were away because most of the key pictures we had taken are safely stored on the Internet (However, I am sad that the photo of me and my mutton chops will only be seen by the people in possession of my computer). Any moment can be a life changing moment if you choose to let it change you, and that’s what I’m doing. I am choosing to have this loss refocus my efforts in the areas that matter most to me. My facebook entry was a little tongue and cheek like a facebook posting needs to be, but it was pretty clear to me that I had used most of those gadgets as diversions instead of what I said I needed them for.

It’s like people who say they subscribe to cable for the Discovery Channel and the History Channel, but spend most of their time watching reality celebrity shows on E!.  I told myself and everyone else that I needed these things for my writing, but ultimately I used the technology to while away the hours watching useless youtube clips or endlessly searching for any details I could find about the new Avengers movie coming out next summer. The iPad was a toy for me (as it is for most) and I wasted more time browsing the Internet casually or flinging Angry Birds at thieving pigs. I was not making the most of the tool within my possession. I was not making the most of my time. I have been living beneath my potential.

An early member of our church said, “No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude, and humility….It is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to require.”

I’m sure he was referring to greater tragedies than what I’ve suffered, but I still take comfort from the sentiment. The key for me in this moment of minor crisis is to make the lessons learned more valuable than the stuff that was lost. It will take some time and effort, but I believe I can use this experience to enrich my life and the lives of those around me, it’s just up to me to figure out how.