There it was,
right on the dog’s bib.
Not too long after getting the ID bracelet, it went missing. Not surprising. Things go missing all the time. Peanut butter jar found in the dishwasher. Underwear in the trash can.
For a person who
has always believed in, “a place for everything and everything in its place,”
and for whom “Look for it!” is inflammatory,
it has been a tough time. Nothing
gets put in its place.
But I am
learning. I must have multiple
items. Can’t find it? Get another.
The lost one will eventually turn up.
About a year ago, I couldn’t find the dandruff-preventing shampoo. I looked and looked.
On a visit
several weeks later, Tisha came upstairs carrying the shampoo. Where did she find it? In a basement closet full of sewing and
quilting material and other junk.
Conventional
wisdom is that the person living with dementia won’t change her ways, so I must
change mine. What I discover is that
losing things bothers me. A lot. That characteristic is why I quit carrying a
pocket knife decades ago. I couldn’t
keep track of it. Them.
When I lose
things, I have to find them. If I had
all the time back that I wasted looking for things that weren’t in their place,
I would only be fifty-something. Though
I try, old habits die hard.
So it was that
when the new ID bracelet disappeared after less than a week, I looked and
looked, even though I knew I should not.
I need more than one. So I
returned to the website I had ordered it from, RoadID, and ordered three more.
One day, I picked
up the cute little mechanical dog to see if it would help to calm stormy waters
that were arising. There it was, the
bracelet on its red band somehow nestled into the dog’s bib.
While waiting for the new bracelet nameplates
to arrive in the mail, I had jerry-rigged a label on one of the spare bands (I
had ordered six total, but only one nameplate) because I found it difficult to leave the house
unless the Goodwife was wearing an ID bracelet.
In less than a
week, the new nameplates arrived. Now I
have multiples and wait for the lost to find themselves, like Little Bopeep’s
sheep.
This time, I
saved the packaging.
Note: the original red bracelet has gone missing
again. It’s been AWOL for 4 or 5 days.
