Finding lost things

On Friday nights, in a small cabin in the woods, a small group sits around a fire. Week after week, these nights bring sacred time to focus on gratitude. What happens here is something of magic — of this, I’m certain.

“I’m grateful for a lot of things,” a man shared one night. “I got to talk to my son on the phone today and he told me he’s proud of me. He’s never said that before.”

His words are met with silence, the kind that carries with it a light heaviness of life’s greatest beauty — a profound moment of meaning.

Looking around at the faces of others sitting in that circle, you could see, and feel, the smiles, nods, and sighs shared in remembrance of this feeling.

Relief.

Relief shared on behalf of their friend, relief understood in the shared experience of finding something you thought you’d lost, words you never thought you’d hear again, someone you’d never see again, an opportunity you’d never get again.

A couple of years before this night, we sat with a young man who had arrived at Doc’s House. We sat, listening to him share the series of events that brought him to our doorstep. In this wake were the people he cared about the most, people he had hurt deeply.

He sat and wept.

Through tears, he talked about the relapse, about how he had been gone from home for weeks, unable to call his family because he was too ashamed. He was afraid they wouldn't speak to him, that the relationships and life he had built were now damaged beyond repair.

Stories of loss and brokenness all share moments like these, it seems. The days when the tears flow and our mourning stands to show us how much these things truly meant to us in the first place.

“We’re just really glad you’re here,” we say to him, trying, in some way, to offer a simple reminder of hope.

But we knew then, as we know now, that sometimes the best thing to show someone in the midst of this loss is presence. Like the stillness we find in front of that fire, the silent reminder of ‘you’re not alone.’

Waiting outside the room were simple handshakes and introductions from others throughout the house, who, in a beautiful display of human connection and empathy spoke simple words to offer reprieve — words like ‘I’ve been there,’ and ‘I’m glad you’re here,’ and ‘it’s going to be okay.’

Over time, I’ve come to understand these words in a different translation: ‘We’re all trying to find our lost things, too.’

Later that day, the man decided to make a phone call. Hands shaking, he dialed his fiancé’s number, skeptical that she’d answer. Thankfully, she did.

“Hi, it’s me,” he said, voice shaking.

These three words were all he could say before the tears started to flow again.

The next day, he would open the door as his family arrived to visit, something that seemed unattainable the day before. He opened the door, his dog ran inside, followed by his fiancé.

Breaking down in tears, “I’m so sorry,” he said as he hugged her.

In that moment, the tension in his shoulders fell away, his tears now symbolizing something different than before — gratitude.

A few days later, he would leave for treatment a different person than the one who showed up on our doorstep.

His spirit calm and ready to do the hard work ahead of him, we spent the morning in honor and celebration of his decision to take the first step on the journey without having any clue how many steps he would need to make.

That morning, his fiancé and his dog walked through the door again. But this time, there weren’t tears. Instead, there was a palpable calm that could be felt across the room and an undercurrent of deep gratitude.

The kind of gratitude that comes on the other side of honesty, on the other side of trusting the process of recovery. When we show up without a clue to how long it will take to find our lost things, surrounded by the lives of others quietly echoing back to us, ‘we’re all trying to find our lost things, too.’

These are the echoes that remind us we’re not alone.

As I find my place back in the circle in front of the fire again this week, I reflect on this moment, and the countless others unfolding in the lives of everyone who sits in this circle.

Maybe, just maybe, we lose things so we can help others find them. So we’re able to tell them we’ve been there, that we know the pain, the frustration and the hopelessness. Because when we lose things, we have the ability to find them again, only then understanding the true and profound gratitude that exists on the other side.

“I’m just really grateful to be me,” one man shares. “ I didn’t think I’d ever be able to say that.”

“I’m really grateful to have my daughter back in my life again,” another follows.

Reflections continue to pour out — gratitude of renewed relationships with family members, celebration of months in recovery, new jobs, dignified opportunities.

Purpose.

Looking around, it’s the same shared experience, the same stillness, the same gratitude, gently illuminating the truth that exists behind each blinking eye.

That one day, in time, it really is possible to find the things we lost.