LOST AND FOUND

         It was green, not a dark green but that vivid green that jumped off the screen at me the first time I saw "The Adventures of Robin Hood" on a color television. It was only a baseball cap made of velour, but I detest green and probably would not have worn it had it not come to me as a unexpected present.

         The Clover discount stores were closing. Their parent had been bought out by a national chain. Banners were hung on the local store's facade:

CLEARANCE - EVERYTHING MUST GO

Morgan and I walked the aisles, browsing with no specific aim in mind. She came upon a picnic hamper. Perhaps hamper is not the proper word; it was more like a fat attache case with a handle and a latch. It was not large and was made of wicker that had been stained and shellacked, so that it held its shape. The small booklet hanging on the handle listed its contents: a plastic tablecloth, four sets of utensils, four plastic cups and plates. The price had been cut by more than fifty percent. Its allure was irresistible to my wife.

         Morgan liked picnics, ready-made picnics. We would stop at a delicatessen, buy a couple of hoagies, a bag of chips, soda for her and water for me. Then it was off to a State or County Park with the dog to find a table and eat our repast. Afterward, I would take the dog for a walk while she smoked that post-meal cigarette that confirmed addicts had to have. Then we would go home.

         Prior to her purchase, we'd always carried our food in plastic bags from the delicatessen. Now we could put our treats in the hamper and eat off plates. We could eat potato salad instead of chips. The first time we put this plan into play, we opened the case and there it was, green and soft. What was a baseball cap doing in our hamper, and with a price tag on it, a price in excess of the amount we paid for the hamper? We theorized that an employee hid the cap inside, so that when he purchased the case, the cap would be an added bonus.

         I feared that my wife would insist we go back and pay for it, but instead she handed the cap to me. She rarely wore anything on her head but a floppy straw hat. I sneered at the color but put it on. She liked the way it looked on me and thus for the next four years, the world was treated to the sight of her middle-aged husband, a denizen of Sherwood Forest from the neck up.

         I lost the cap a year ago today. I left it in Morgan's hospital room the morning of the last day I saw her alive. I would alternate between wearing it and a blue denim cap, needing a covering to keep the sun off my balding head. I probably took it off to put a mask over my mouth and nose. Morgan had been placed in a single room on her return from the ICU unit because of an infection. It was clearing up, but in my memory I think I can see the notices taped outside her door.

         I'm sure she smiled at me and said 'good morning Sweetie'. I was there 'bright and early' to catch the doctors on rounds and meet the nutritionist to choose her meals for the day. Such thinking was beyond her abilities now. Either her doctor or social worker had told me that she would be returning to the assisted living facility the next day. I have a further memory of helping her to the bathroom when an aide was late in coming and then witnessing the visit of the physical therapist.

         James was a tall, cheerful Black man with a shaven head. He and his assistant got her out of bed and into a chair. That would be her therapy for the day. They measured her oxygen level and were not happy with the result, but at the Home she would be next to the nurses' station and would get six liters of oxygen. Once she was back in bed and the meals ordered, I had to leave for home, twenty-five miles away. I gave her my usual 'see you tonight' and blew her a kiss.

         In the car as I drove out of the parking lot, I realized I did not have the cap. When I returned in the evening, I searched the room but it was gone. Morgan was passing too, but I did not know it until after I returned home that night and was awakened by the hospital to tell me she had died. The cap was totally forgotten on that third visit to say good bye.

         The picnic hamper now sits on a high shelf in the old art room. It hasn't been used since we moved here. The cap is not inside; I checked just now. I thought I should try. I have been finding things today. I found the little combination knife and nail file that friend Pam gave me for my birthday. I had broken my old one trying to open a bottle of wine at her house. I found a credit card I thought I had lost and which Pam insisted I would find if I would search again.

         Pam is not even aware of the lost cap of Robin Hood green, or wasn't until I emailed her after the memory came back to me. The details that I have just recounted flooded back to me in the shower. I wrote Pam that my work would have to wait while I sorted things out in my mind and put them down on paper. I then took my mail to the post office. When I returned, there was a reply from her, "I am here for you, David." I knew she would be! Cap or no cap, maybe it is time Pam and I took down the hamper had ourselves a picnic.

Valatie June 13, 2002