MARY GAZETAS: Lost and found can mean many things

A flat, brown cardboard box had been leaning against a wall - waiting to be opened for over a week.

It was an IKEA box that I wasn’t in a big hurry to open because I didn’t know how long it would take me to assemble a small bedside table. Nor have the patience to fuss with tools and try not to go into a fast forward mode or skip a step of their illustrated instructions.

When I finally found a moment to want to put together the table I slit the box open and began to sort through the parts. Most of it made sense and if I was anxious about some of the hardware not being included, or if a key piece was missing - those fears quickly vanished.

It wasn’t intimidating after all. Whoever puts these Swedish packages together and designs the instruction sheets, I’m sure they’ve figured it out knowing there’s people like me who sometimes don’t get the directions. I caught myself saying, “I did it myself.” And then grinning a bit because down in the garage is a packaged new bed. A project that I’ve seconded help for to tackle with a promise of making a “best lunch” as part of the deal.

I found some others things this week too. Such as “lost” gardening tools that were hidden by the dead daisies and zapped dahlia plants - trowels and weeding tools that had simply ”gone missing” because of the overgrowth. Tidying up a small garden for winter is always a nice kind of chore. I tossed the carved Halloween pumpkins from the porch railing down into the ditch garden where the old boat sits - the one that had daffodils and garlic growing in it this year and that I have written about before.

The story behind the old Turner dinghy is that it appeared one night quite a few years ago across the road where the boat launch is and two neighbours rescued it and gave it a new home. A few days ago I was talking to Cathie Phillips, who is one of the rehab staff in the Minoru Residence. I can’t remember what made us start to talk about the boat. She told me she could see it down in the ditch when she drives the resident bus past our house. It turns out the boat used to belong to her family!

Cathie described rowing trips she and her husband used to take in it with their young children. She knew all about clinker style Turner boats and the ongoing care they needed. One day they realized the boat’s sea days were over and knew it was time to get rid of it. The story got better as she told me more and we were laughing about this ‘it’s a small world’ incident and her happiness in that it was now a planter boat for me.

The other thing I found out was the news that the money has been raised for the shower chair campaign! Karen Young at the Richmond Hospital and myself are thrilled that many generous and caring people contributed. We crossed the finish line to raise the $10,000 that was needed to buy a special piece of equipment for the 3 South Acute Care ward. We didn’t lose when we had this dream back in July to raise that kind of money.

“Lost and found,” depending on the context, can mean just about anything. I like it when those two words can also be a metaphor for experiences related to discoveries and, acts of giving and replacement.

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