Lost and Found

“My son and I had discussed writing a thank-you note. Do you think that would make a difference?”

I smiled and held my breath as the receptionist, who had been studying me, replied, “No.”

I exhaled, “Well, thank you very much, then.” I breezed out of the nearby town’s middle school. Though it was the first beautiful sunny Monday in Spring, the buoyancy in my step after retrieving my son’s iPod following a lengthy search drained away quickly.

My son had called me during a rather inopportune time while I was away on a business trip, but I didn’t let on that I was busy. He needed to talk about the presentation he had to make the following day. Just as we were about to hang up, he threw in, “I lost my iPod yesterday.”

It wasn’t just an MP3 player — it was the latest model of iPod Touch with a customized case that he received for Christmas, probably the only gift he remembered, and certainly the most late-model technology of the plethora of devices in our house, even including my work computer. My son took the iPod with him wherever he went; the value to him was far greater than the sum of the cost of the device and all the apps it contained.

I kept my tone even and neutral. “What do you mean, you lost your iPod. How could that happen?”

“I was sitting on the away bench doing homework. When the other team showed up, Coach told us to move. It must have fallen out of my backpack.”

“Honey, did you ask Coach?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know…mumble mumble…”

“Well…” I looked at the time. It was 2:00 where I was, which meant 5:00 where my son was. He was already home from practice. “…I’ll email Coach.”

“Okay, Mom. Thanks, Mom.” He sounded relieved.

“First thing tomorrow, check the lost and found in the office.”

“It’s not gonna be in lost and found, Mom.”

“Not the box by the cafeteria, honey. Check in the office.”

Fast forward two days, and I was home from my business trip. I still had not heard back from Coach, nor had my son checked with him or the office; thus, I began the odyssey of hunting down the iPod in earnest.

I didn’t delve too deeply into why my son couldn’t bring himself to act. I simply told him if it were my iPhone, I would do anything I had to do to find out what happened to it and whatever it took to get it back. So, that is what I did for him.

I made multiple calls and visits to schools, building and grounds departments, and police stations (not to report it stolen, just thinking that if someone didn’t know whose it was, that might be a place to take it). Ultimately, after a dozen contacts, I learned, indirectly through the away team’s coach, that one of his players had it. But it was at his house. And since it was Friday, he’d bring it to school on Monday.

So, that is why I was at the nearby town’s middle school on the first beautiful sunny Monday in Spring.

The receptionist told me the boy had told her he’d found the iPod in the woods. We all knew that wasn’t true, but I was still grateful, and I knew my son was grateful. And that is why — when I sat him down the previous Friday afternoon after school to explain what it took to track down the iPod and when we’d get it back (“Okay, Mom. Thanks, Mom!”) — we had discussed writing an anonymous thank you note, and what it might say.

The fact that the receptionist had said “no,” she didn’t think it would make a difference just didn’t sit right with me. Did she think it was already too late for a middle-school-aged boy to correct his course? Who were his role models? Had everyone already written him off?

Many of us have found ourselves on a path to a place we realized we didn’t want to go. We backtrack, ask for directions, and choose a new route carefully. I believe that even when we’ve already arrived at the proverbial (but fallacious) “point of no return,” there can still be redemption. We have the option to choose a new path, even if we don’t know where it goes, even if it’s just “away” from the wrong path, even if we’re just taking one step at a time.

It has been a while since middle school, and I don’t remember ever writing the thank-you note. I hope someone was in that boy’s corner, cheering him on. After all, middle school is when we’re still figuring out who we want to become and how we’re going to get there.

A version of this story appears in Boy to the World!, which is available in paperback and free with Kindle Unlimited.

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