A Lost Beloved Thing

Last summer, when TD and I took a memorable trip to Italy for my nephew's wedding on Lake Como, we flew from JFK airport on a Sunday night for an all-night flight to Milan. I find going through the airport TSA check point to be stressful -- it seems like you wait in a long slow line to get up to security and then suddenly it's a mad rush to get your belongings into a plastic bin -- and then what needs to come off? Your shoes, your belt, your jacket, your phone, your watch, your wallet? Sometimes it seems that the requirements are different. The guards are yelling to move along faster. I took off my things and as I approached the scanner, TD, who was behind me, said, "Do you have your cross on?"

   Ah, my cross.  When I was in high school, my father gave me a silver cross on a chain that I have loved these many years. My father didn't give me a lot of gifts and this one was perfect so it was highly unusual. He had picked it out in a store in downtown Utica ­– a small silver asymmetrical medallion centered by a cross. On one side the medallion is cross-hatched and the other side has the texture of modeled clay. It was simple but interesting and modern but timeless, and I have cherished, and not lost it, for approximately 50 years. The only jewelry I wear is my wedding ring from TD, a watch that belonged to my brother Eric, and my father's cross.

   At the airport, I quickly slipped the chain and cross off my neck and threw it into the black plastic bin. On the other side of security, we hurriedly gathered our things and put them back on and continued to the gate for our flight.

     The next day around mid-day in the hotel in Milan, felt my chest for my cross on the chain. It wasn't there. In a panic, I rifled through all my pockets and knapsack looking for it. Had I already taken it off and put it somewhere in the hotel room? I didn't think so but I searched the room and through my pockets again. I couldn't find it anywhere and I flashed back to Ted speaking to me at security and slipping it off my neck.

     I had left my cross in the plastic bin at JFK International Airport.

     My heart sank. I had managed to hold on to that cross for 50 years and now it was gone. And I felt terrible. Why hadn't I put it in a safe pocket in my knapsack where it wouldn't get lost? I was distraught and angry at myself. This had the potential to ruin the trip.

  After a while I opened my laptop to see how to report a missing item at JFK. I found an email address and rather hopelessly sent off an email to TSA describing what I lost and where and when I lost it. Three days later I received an email back that said TSA did not collect lost items for the particular terminal we were in. For that terminal, I had to submit a report on an app.

    Oh dear I thought, the black hole of an app. On the app I submitted a lost item report. It asked for a photo or drawing of the item so I got out a pad of paper and sketched my cross 

    I took a picture of it and uploaded it to the app and sent it off. 

   30 minutes later I received a message back from the app. 

   They had my cross. 

   I literally could not believe my eyes when I read it. I thought maybe it was a mistake but how could it have been when my drawing was so specific. In that vast airport terminal, someone had found and retrieved my little silver cross. And the emailing and app from my hotel room in Milan had worked. Honestly, it felt like a miracle. I was so happy and relieved. It said for $50, they would FedEx it to my home so a few days after we returned from Italy, I received my silver cross in the mail and slipped it on my neck. I really am so grateful to TSA for being organized. And amazed that when it works, technology really works.