What Once Was Lost

I had been coveting the beautiful magein david necklaces that began to adorn the necks of my classmates and their S.O.s (significant others) during our Year-In-Irael program. Sure, I had a few of my own including a stunning one I had been given as a naming gift when I was born. What I wanted, though, was a grown-up, simple one for daily use.

What I ultimately selected was not the necklace I set out to buy. I thought I would end up with something more like one of these:

Standing at the counter in a shop in The Cardo, something else caught my eye. Gold. Unadorned. Simple. Beautiful. Unexpectedly, and rather suddenly, the ones I had in mind seemed too ornate. Too fancy. Too “not me.” The shopkeeper offered to wrap up the understated necklace. Lo todah. “No thank you,” I said as I clasped the link around my neck.

So when Poppyseed lost it during Seder two weeks ago, I was crushed. PC had the good sense to tell me the following morning — and only after he, Poppyseed, and BubbeGiraffe had searched for it. Poppyseed swore that she had put it in PC’s coat jacket pocket. And PC swore that he checked the pockets.

I believed them then as I believe them now.

I do not know what possessed me to ask the woman at the dry cleaners if I might check the pockets before she took that very same coat from me.
But I am grateful that I did.