3-2-18 LOST

Tonight, after a busy day, I went to check messages on my phone and it was nowhere to be found. We searched our house, my sister's house, the garage, and the car. I even checked the refrigerator (it's been that kind of day). We are familiar with the routine, which goes something like this:

"Have you seen my phone?"

"Nope."

"Will you call it for me?"

Dave dials my number. We tiptoe around the house listening for the ring.

My voice mail answers.

He hangs up and dials again.

I tiptoe out to the garage, then open the car door.

He hangs up and calls Libby, who goes through the same process at her house.

Finally we get on the iPad and make use of the Find My iPhone app.

After a few guesses as to which email address I used to sign up for my apple ID, and then trying various passwords from various iterations of usage, I sign in to my Apple account and use the app. Up comes a photograph of an aerial view of a neighborhood. Zooming in, we discover it is in our daughter Annie's family room, where I had earlier this evening been playing with her kids.

It still blows me away to think that such information is readily available. I do not need a government password to retrieve these details. This is every-day common man stuff, right at our fingertips. Even in Kenya, Africa, where children do not have shoes to wear, nearly everyone has a cell phone.

I was just thinking though, in relation to the magical "find my iPhone" application, that the whole idea of instantly finding what is lost is awesome. For some reason my mind went to an image of my daughter Annie, when she was a teenager. In my memory, we are standing in the kitchen, her head is on my shoulder, and her tears are soaking into my blouse. She has always been good at asking me to comfort her when she needs it. It's one of her gifts.

"What is troubling you?" I ask. 

"I don't know. I shouldn't be sad. I just am. I ache inside and I don't know why."

"Did something happen?"

"No."

"Are you worried about something?"

"No."

"OK."

Something inside urges me to stop asking questions. Just love, and hold, and let her cry. So that's what I do, until the flood recedes and she is able to breathe in her own space.

I understand. There was a time when I was that girl and my mother's arms comforted me in the same way.

Sometimes we just hurt inside, for no logical reason.

That's when we really could use a spiritual, or at least emotional app: 

"Find My Heart."

Wouldn't that be nice? 

Then again, when would we get the opportunity to comfort, or be comforted? Sometimes there is value in being lost.