Lost and Found

Discovering that I am Lost

           I am so lost. I shouldn’t be surprised by that though. Not knowing what I am doing or why I am doing it is an increasing part of my life these days. This kind of ‘what am I doing and why am I doing it’ began a few years back when I turned 70 years of age. I would open the refrigerator door, and have no idea what it was I was looking for. I would stare and stare and eventually would give up and shut the refrigerator door. When this first began I would say to myself (out loud as I live alone), ‘it is not really important.’

           That wasn’t so bad, although I didn’t think so pretty much all the times that it happened. Eventually the urge would come again, and I would say repeatedly what it was I was looking for as I headed back to the refrigerator: often cupcakes, my favourite food. You’d think I would remember that.

           This is much worse. I am driving on a highway and have no idea where it is I am going to or why I am going there. I suspect that I am going west, as the sun in the sky is a bit ahead of me. At least I can remember that.

If I wanted to give up, I would just turn around and head east, where my home is. But I do not want to give up. This trip must have been in its origin very important to me, or I wouldn’t be facing such a challenge . So I will keep on going, hoping that the goal appears in my head, like cupcakes in a refrigerator (a few times but not always). As long as I know what direction that I came from, I should be okay if I decide to return.

Stopping and Reconsidering

           A little over an hour later, he quite suddenly steers his car off of the pavement, and with a quick braking stops on the side of the road. He thinks, “Is it worth my while to continue this journey when I really do not know where I am going. I could be driving for hours without no plan or clear direction. Would that not be the very height of old man foolishness.”

           Thinking those words, particularly the last one, he decided that he would continue. He did not believe in giving up. And he did not like anyone calling him foolish, not even himself.

Going Home?

           I am approaching a town now. Somehow this place feels familiar, but right now I do not know why that might be. Have I seen it recently on television? Did a relative of mine used to live here?

           But am I actually going home? Is this my home town. A few miles along the main street I see a school, and feel a sudden urge to pull into the parking lot in front of it. Much of it looks rather foreign and new to me, but there is something special and memorable about it. I wonder why I felt that I should park here. I trust my thoughts on the matter, not something I do every day.

           As I wander around the buildings, I am getting stared at by a few students, and hear the word ‘grandpa’ spoken a few times, not in a particularly nice way. That’s okay. I enjoy being a grandfather. My grandchildren, whose names escape my mind right now, are like cupcakes in my life. Wait, their names are George and Francine. Thank you memory.

           Then I get it. One of the buildings, looking obviously much older than the rest, looks very, very familiar. It should, as I remember now that this is my old school, which I attended from grade nine to twelve. I realize now that I am in my old home town. That is why I was driving this way. How could I have forgotten that? I lived here for the first 20 years of my life. This is a very big cupcake.

           And thinking about cupcakes, I realize that I would very much like to have one of those that the cafeteria in this school used to serve when I was a student, the ones covered with chocolate icing on top.

           I walk in through one of the back doors, and find myself lost again. I cannot remember where the cafeteria is.  And my sense of smell is not what it used to be, so I cannot sniff my way there. I ask a student, who very politely leads me there. 

           As I walk into the ‘caf” as many students used to call it (the three letters representing the words ‘crappy awful food’) I see someone who looks kind of familiar standing behind the food counter. Is that just because I am in a familiar place? No, I think that she is someone that I used to see at the school. How can that be? But she does look old enough to have been there as the same time that I was.

           When I walk up to the counter, I ask her for two chocolate covered cupcakes. She stares at me for what seems to be a long time and then smiles. She says to me, “Did you used to be a student here who would buy cupcakes every day? Wait a minute?” There was a long, several seconds delay after that.  “Is your name ‘Frank’?” Her saying my name triggers a memory of my own. 

           “Are you Josephine?” She said “yes”. I now remember her as someone who was in her twenties working at the cafeteria when I was in my teens. I was interested in her, but did not have the nerve to ask her out. She seemed much older and more sophisticated than I was at the time. It was hard enough for me to ask someone out who was my own age, although I did ask Dora, my now long deceased wife.

           Josephine stared at me, and then said, “Didn’t you used to be on the football team? You were my favourite player.” I did not know what to say. I had no idea way back then that she was interested in me.

           She then surprised me even further. “It is about time for my break. Would you spend it with me?”

           This was the beginning of another two large symbolic cupcakes for me. First, I moved into my old hometown, which I never should have left in the first place. Second, Josephine and I would spend time with each other every day, and I never forgot her name, saying it every time we got together.