Day 274: I am Lost and Found Part 1

This is the final version of the memoir I went with.  I loved how it turned out.  I actually read this aloud at the school's student reading, and it was well-received.

I am Lost and Found

When I was about seven years old, my mom gave me my first real ring, a golden one with a sapphire in the middle.  I was so excited to actually own something so grown-up.  On the first afternoon of wearing it, I went with my mom to get her nails done.  I needed to go to the bathroom, so I went in by myself.  When I went to wash my hands, I gingerly took the ring off my short pudgy finger and placed it next to the handles at the sink.  Since I wasn’t used to wearing it, I dried my hands off and left.  By the time I realized it was missing and went back inside to retrieve it, the ring was gone.  It was a cruel lesson in never taking my jewelry off when I wash my hands.

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     When I was around ten years old, I was playing dolls with my little sister in our toy room.  We had recently received these tiny little fairies for Christmas.  They were only as tall as my thumb and came in multiple colors.  Their sparkly wings were made of pliable plastic, perfect for making them fly.  We were hovering them over our Barbies, pretending they were flitting from person to person. 

     “I am offended now, Allison,” a pink fairy spoke to Kaitlyn’s blond Barbie.

     “Then why don’t you go bother someone else?” Kaitlyn’s retorted saucily.

     “I will!”  And with that, I flung the fairy up as high as I could to make it fly away.  We never saw her come down to the floor.

     “Where did it go?” I asked. 

     “Maybe she fell on the Allen family over there.”

     So Kaitlyn and I started digging through the Barbie dolls, clothes, shoes, cars, and accessories that carpeted the floor.  I shoved toys to one side, like I was shoveling through snow, but I could not find it.  Then we broadened our area and looked in the baby doll high chairs and in open boxes.  Still nothing.

     “It’s gone,” Kaitlyn said with slight irritation.  “Why did you have to toss it up so high?”  The pink fairy was harder to find in stores and happened to be her favorite one.

     “I just wanted it to fly,” was all I could manage.

     Fast forward time to, I don’t know, several months later, and my mom sent Kaitlyn and me to switch the curtains in the toy room with a new set.  Kaitlyn stood on her tiptoes on the step ladder and lifted the curtain rod up and off the hooks when what tumbled down?  A small fairy with pink glittery wings.

     “Look!” she squealed, dropping the curtain rod.

     I couldn’t believe my eyes.  Who would have thought she was nestled in one of the scallops to the valance above our heads all that time?