While chatting with a dear friend, we surveyed the familiar landscape of our bond of friendship through laughter; present moment concerns in the midst of all the real-life drama of elections and a continuing pandemic, as well as personal challenges and hardships. As we happened to talk about our shared fondness for gloves while discussing our latest clutter clearing activities that included storing and accessing favorite items, she inspired me with her casual reference to a lost glove by sharing that she can’t find one of the pair, but she keeps the one glove in hopes that she will one day find the other missing one to complete the pair. This prompted me to confess that I, too, have a glove without a mate and have refused to discard it believing that the other one will show up. I recall that one of the gloves went missing in the early stages of the pandemic when my mind was preoccupied with other things. I had gone on an errand for my husband to the mechanic wearing my gloves and waiting for the work to be completed. The next day, although I knew I had been carelessly tossing them on a shelf near the front door of our apartment with the feeling that they would always be there, but on the following morning when I looked for them, there was only one. In my despair, I went back to the mechanic to check if it had been found and there was no trace.
Now, months later, while in the process of a deep cleaning of my apartment, I came across that one stunning glove that remains from the pair and realize that I have been holding on to it with the hope that the other one will turn up. This all brings me to the realization that hope is like the feeling that I hold about that missing glove. It is not visible, but my strong belief tells me that it will return. After almost a year of a pandemic and indescribable struggles, loss and confusion, I believe that hope is my promise that somehow, like my missing glove, we will be reunited with a sense of safety and stability. Until that happens, I will hold a place for these things just as I hold a place in my bureau to welcome the return of my beloved itinerant glove. The lesson for me is that I should never be careless or take for granted the things that I hold dear. This is equally true for life, liberty and a precious pursuit of happiness because as I have said before, there are lessons in loss that 2020 has expertly made accessible to us on many levels. Let us embrace what we have in hand and sustain our collective belief in the restoration of the capacity to begin again.