Another Loss Thing

My favorite poem is Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art" because from the first time I read it, it has provided me the comfort of knowing that I can survive my losses, because she could survive hers.

"The art of losing isn't hard to master," she begins, "so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster,

Lose something every day."

And yesterday I lost one of the pearl earrings given to me by my (now gone) mother for my college graduation. I was standing at my bedroom window to look out as I removed first the left, and then the right, when I felt it fall and a "clink" as (I thought) it hit the heat vent on the floor. Quickly, I bent to remove the vent cover and look inside, but it wasn't there.

I phoned DH and he reassured me. "No problem," he said. It cannot go anywhere. I will get it.

It was a problem, he didn't, and after we meticulously searched every square inch of the bedroom in any location it might of launched itself after hitting the vent cover. We checked my clothes -- even those I'd already changed out of, but no earring.

I teared up. I went to the other room to watch TV, and cried. I tried not to, but it seemed like I'd lost Mom all over again. Even now I well up. Another link, gone.

Then I remember Elizabeth's ending:

"Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like a disaster."

So, maybe, just maybe if I write it, as I am writing here. Maybe this won't seem such a disaster.

Maybe.