Lost and Found

 

This is one of my favorite things.  It is an 18k gold Elgin lady's pocket watch that belonged to my great grandmother, Amalia. She immigrated from Poland, met her Polish husband in Kansas, and lived the American Dream.  My grandfather carried this watch when my dad was a little boy.  But one day he lost it.  It was missing for a long time.  Months. And then a child was kicking the leaves along the edge of the sidewalk in their little town and he found it.  Being a little town, everyone knew my grandad had been searching and searching for this watch and of course it was returned to him.  He promptly placed it in his safety deposit box at the bank and never again took it out.  At some point he went in there and put it in a small manilla envelope and wrote my name on it.  He gave it to me.

Now, I love old things.  I actually walk into antique stores and look at all the stuff and wonder why in the world people would get rid of it.  I know it's weird.  But I do.  So anyway, I really love this watch.

We travel alot and I often hide the few little valuable things I have in an unlikely place around the house so if, by chance, a thief came, they would never find it.  Problem is....I have more than once hid it so well that I can't find it.  For a long time.  Twice I've been convinced that I would never see it again.  My family absolutely could not believe that I had done it again.  But I did.  This last time it was actually with a few other pieces that belonged to my grandmother.  I felt so stupid.  Tore the house apart. Finally gave up.

Last week my son was looking for his dad's old guitar tuner.  He couldn't find it anywhere.  He looked and looked.  He walked up to me, held out a small jewelry box and said, "Is this what you've been looking for?  It was on top of Dad's bookcase!"

The watch is now in my safety deposit box at the bank.