The Lost Is Found

 One advantage of our large double-wide is we have plenty of room for having family over on holidays. Last fall it was Thanksgiving, but with most of the extended family having other family of their own to celebrate with on the actual holiday, we hosted on Saturday.

It snowed, about 5 inches. One of our guests, a friend of a family member,  discovered on her way out the door, that an earlier walk for the two down to enjoy the lake before dinner had resulted somehow in the loss of her car keys. A hunt ensued, both indoors and outdoors, with no results. Wherever they had fallen, more snow had obliterated all signs.

We all know that keys are replaceable, though with whatever inconvenience. On a snowy Saturday evening it involved breaking into the vehicle to get a house key left inside (lucky break), a ride to another town to her house where spare keys sat, and a return to our place to finally make a late night drive home. That was the plan anyway. It turned out breaking into the car caught a neighbor's attention, who then called the police to check out what was going on. That happened to be a good thing, once the ID matched the car ownership records, since all previous tries at breaking in had failed at that point. We had started preparing for an overnight guest, hoping for new ideas in the morning. Once the police verified ownership, they had the proper tool to open the door, and the plan proceeded. A ride was provided to the owner's home to pick up the other car keys, then back here to get the car and head home.

It could have been that simple, mission accomplished, just a new need to replace a second set of keys so there were still spares. The hitch was it wasn't just keys on that ring. A very special medallion hung on the big ring. It was an award her father had earned shortly before he'd died. It was also, due to many circumstances, the only memento left of him our guest still possessed. It was the true loss of the day, not replaceable.

This of course was a winter where more and more snow fell, plows piled up icy heaps on both sides of the street, and every melt simply made another ice layer between more snowfalls. Even later when multiple warm days began to melt snow away on one side of the street getting sun, the other side was shaded by homes and still hasn't completely cleared. Not knowing where the keys had fallen, nor paying that much attention to which side of the street they had walked down... or back... we had no idea where to look. If it was on one side, the plow would have pushed snow downhill, along the sunnier side, but almost into the lake, an area covered by lots of lumpy softball sized rocks that keys could hide under. If the other side, it would have been pushed uphill, perhaps even out to the county road. It was the side still piled high from home to street for every location. Plans were made to get a metal detector and make a try locating them that way, but weather and everything else that could interfere with those plans happened. A note on the community billboard in the mailroom got removed before producing results.

Patience warred with discouragement over the months. We'd start to see patches of dead grass but only briefly between snowfalls. Resignation started to settle in. Hope for a lost last treasure was being let go.

 A few days ago I walked in to the community mail area and glanced at the bulletin board. High enough to be a challenge for me to reach, hanging on a map tack, was a key ring. THE KEY RING! I pocketed it, grabbed our mail, and once home made a phone call with the good news. When relevant vehicles were having issues, including the rise in gas prices, I made arrangements to take the key ring and hang it on the appropriate door inside a bag. My schedule didn't match their owner's but phone calls were exchanged to be positive of the exact address and the security of the specific drop off point, verified a couple hours later learning they had been picked up. I'm told she just kept holding on to it for a long time.

Now all that remains is a note on the bulletin board thanking the anonymous person hanging the keys and letting them know both it was important and they had reached their owner. I have it on good authority there is a map tack available there.