Lost and Never Found

I'm nervous about doing this but my sister of Letters for Lucas said that it would be good for me to expand my writing topics. So, each week, Mama Kat gives several prompts to choose from and write about in your blog. Last Thursday's prompt that I chose was, "What did you once lose? Write about your search to find it again."

So here goes nothing:

To truly understand the importance of what I lost, first I must give you a little background on my life. Trust me, it will all make sense.

For those of you that don't know, my parents decided early on in their marriage that they were going to travel the world together teaching at different schools. Of course my sister and I joined them on this crazy adventure. I was born in Pakistan which was their first overseas teaching job. Just about every 4 years, we would move to a new country. After Pakistan we moved to the Gambia, then Venezuela, then Somalia, then Mozambique and finally Myanmar where I graduated from High School. Most weekends and all our vacations throughout the school year, we would travel to nearby cities and really absorb as much of the culture as we could while we were in each of those countries.

So, on one of our vacations around South-East Asia, I lost my Captain's Log Book. What is a Captain's Log Book, you may ask? Well, it's this incredible little booklet that had every single pilot of every flight that I was ever on write in for me. They would write the date, length and mileage of the flight and even include a few personal comments of their own for me. I remember one wrote, "You've been on more flights then me!" I was only 8 at the time!

My parents started the Captain's Log Book for me on my very first plane ride ever so you can imagine how full it was. My life story was basically in it. When I realized I lost it, you can only imagine how heartbroken I was. My parents were devastated too. There went 17 years of flights and countless memories down the drain.

As soon as we got home, I double checked all my bags, every single pocket was emptied and I retraced every step of the day. When it was finally clear that we no longer were in possession of the book, we called the airline, desperately searching for it, but not speaking the local language certainly didn't help us out at all. No one could understand why a book would be so important to us.

I was still hopeful that I would find it again since there are only a handful of planes flying in and out of the city where we lived, I just assumed that we would get back on that plane again at some point. Needless to say we didn't and my Captain's Log Book was lost and never found. Even today, almost 10 years later, whenever I think of the book, I still get sad and regret not treating that book with more care. Thankfully, I still have all my old passports and those will serve as my way of looking back at all my past travels.

If you are reading this now and have kept up with a Captain's Log Book, please continue to do so and keep a close eye on where it is always!