Haunted

I'm being haunted.

It's a good thing, though.

Things are reappearing.

We got married eight years ago.  A good friend of ours, who happens to be a documentary film maker, was our videographer.  He made a pretty darn awesome wedding video - one that didn't put our friends to sleep when we showed it, like so many wedding videos.  We loved it.  We loved it so much, we brought it with us all over the country, to show our family and friends.  Somewhere along the way, it was misplaced.  We tore our house apart searching for it.  We ransacked my in-laws' house searching for it.  We dug through my mother's house searching for it.  It was nowhere to be found.  Vanished in thin air -- for over five years.

In June of last year, my husband started the Specific Carbohydrate Diet in an attempt to help out his autoimmune disease.  He lost a lot of weight.  So much weight, that his wedding band fell off his hand on more than one occasion.  One such occasion happened to be while he was walking in a parking lot.  He heard a tinkling sound and noticed something shiny bouncing ahead of him.  It was his ring.  Good thing it was sunny that day.

So, six months ago, he couldn't find his ring.  He thought he may have left it on the windowsill of the kitchen, where he keeps it when he cooks.  Nope.  Then he thought maybe it was on the windowsill of the bathroom, where he keeps it when he takes a shower.  Not there, either.  He checked next to the bed, and the windowsill in the bedroom (because he seems to like to put his ring on windowsills), and he had no luck.  He figured he took it off at work and left it on his desk.  He couldn't find it there, either.  The only other explanation was that it fell off his finger, and this time he didn't hear it tinkling, or see it shimmering

He bought a new one.  In eight years, the price of our particular wedding ring has tripled.  I told him to make an insurance claim.  He never did, because he figured he was an imbecile and it was all his fault.

Last month, my car was broken into.  The glove box was opened, and the broken GPS was taken, along with the broken GPS's power cord.  When I realized that what the thieves took was a crappy piece of electronics that was simply taking up space in my glove box, I laughed.  And then I remembered that E had an MP3 player in the back seat.  I looked in her cupholder.  Gone.  I found her headphones and sighed.  I pulled on the cord with hope.  It was light, and as I came to the end, my fear was realized.  Lizzie's MP3 was gone.  Stolen by middle school thugs who have nothing to do on a Saturday night except wander through a condominium parking lot trying the doors of every car until one opens, and taking the one thing a five year old girl looks forward to during a long car ride.  Fuckheads.  Bastards.  Cum Wads!

It's no secret that 2013 was a terrible year for me.  2014 wasn't looking very rosey, either.

And then one day in the middle of February, I decided to go shopping at Natural Grocers.  They are a little grocery nearby that has organic hippie food.  They also don't put your food into bags, so if you don't bring your own, you have to carry your food out in a cardboard box.  Not wanting to deal with the box of shame, I opened the back of the car, and emptied out the one bag that we had, containing an assortment of tools, twine and rope.  I heard a tinkling.  I saw something sparkly bounce in front of me.  It was a wedding band.  I thought it was mine.  I looked at my finger.  My ring was there.  I looked at the ring in the back of my car.  Could it be?  No...  how could it have gotten here?  I picked it up, and sure enough, it was the missing wedding band.  No. Fucking. Way.

The next week, as I was putting L into his car seat for the five hundred and four millionth time, I noticed there was something black stuck between his car seat and the seat back.  He is still rear-facing, because I'm one of those parents (I should wear a t-shirt that says "Talk to me about extended breastfeeding, babywearing, cloth diapering and rear-facing car seats!"), so noticing some strange object between the car seat and the seat back shouldn't be that difficult.  This strange object just happened to be in the exact spot where I put my hand to loosen the car seat strap. I loosen the car seat strap every time I get him out of his car seat.  How did I not notice this strange black object before?  I picked it up, and was surprised to realize it was the stolen MP3 player!  For a nanosecond, I actually thought that the thieves felt remorse for what they had done, broke into my car a second time, and stuck the MP3 player in that spot so it would seem like it was just misplaced.

And then, last week, the most insane of all things to ever happen in this house happened.  P had spent half the week in Seattle at a conference.  He was in the bedroom, putting away his suitcase in the closet.  As he was moving an old bag that we haven't used in years, in order to make room for his bag, he heard a strange sound coming from one of the pockets.  He pulled down the bag and opened the pocket.  Inside was a giant ziplock bag.  Inside the giant ziplock bag were four DVD's.  Two were documentaries about the PCT that our friend and videographer made.  One was a video slideshow of photos compiled from a bunch of people who hiked the PCT in 2003.  The last DVD was the one and only copy of Camp Belchigator shenanigans.  It was truly unbelievable.

He didn't tell me right away.  He kept it a secret.  In fact, this was the day we had the big fight.

That night, as I was about to play another episode of Weeds, he said "No, let's watch a movie instead."

"OK.  What movie?" I asked.

"I have one," was his reply as he sauntered toward the bedroom.  He popped it into the computer before I could see what it was.

I thought he'd gotten Squatch to make another copy, since we had just seen him.  Either way, it was so nice to relive those happy moments, especially after our fight.  I only cried once, during the father/daughter dance.

I try not to get ethereal on my blog, or think about other worldly things in general.  I can't explain them, and while I've considered my own mortality and that of my mother, siblings and children fairly regularly since Labor Day, I still can't fathom what happens in the end.  I can only hope.  For the past month, as items that I thought were gone for good find their way back to me, my hope grows -- hope that there is something beyond this life; that my dad, grandmother, grandfather, former pets, teachers, friends, and others who have touched my life have found peace, are happy, and are never very far away.

What once was lost now is found.