Lost & Found
Every college student loses
something —
earbuds, a book, dance shoes,
their backpack, a half dozen pencils,
the key to their room, an important paper they forgot
to save before sleeping, or themselves
on the first day of class. One day
I realized I’d lost
my Heavenly Mother.
I sought Her in religious classes,
used techniques from rhetoric to scrutinize
phrase after phrase and word after word
for clues of Her, and asked question after question.
So I asked myself where
do the lost things go?
To quiet, musty shelves in the basement
of the WILK. Shelves filled with boxes
of gloves that fell from pockets and coats
forgotten on warm spring days, calculators
accidently forgotten in class, rows
and mounds of water bottles, a box
with random pieces of games like Apples
to Apples cards and Dominion, a tub
of basketballs and tennis rackets.
But She’s not sitting on a shelf
at the Lost and Found just waiting
for someone to say “Hey, I lost my
Heavenly Mother? Have you found
Her? Is She here?” I sought Her
in other places — sunsets and forests and poetry
and essays and scriptures. The Monday
in October when I finally found
Her, I was crammed into a tiny apartment by the mall
south of campus with a couple dozen young
adults to listen to Rachel’s poetry.
There were so many people eager
to hear Rachel’s words about Heavenly Mother
that the floor was packed, the couch filled, the stairs,
even the windowsill like when people filled
houses and roofs to listen to Jesus speak.
Sitting on the floor listening to Rachel read her poetry,
that’s when I found Her. She was there,
loving each of us irregardless
of our mistakes or pranks or Her own weariness
from living through the waxing and waning of many,
many moons, whispering “I love you” and
“You can do this” and “I am with you” to children
struggling with history or calculus or roommates
or depression or any part of life.
