Alan S. Oser

“Jan!” I cried, shouting to my wife in the tone of pained urgency I use to suggest that I am about to deliver a withering rebuke. “Have you seen my glasses anywhere?”

Once again, I cannot find my reading glasses. Once again, I am experiencing an upsurge of unpleasant feelings–pain, anger, frustration–because my glasses are not where I am certain I left them. Obviously the first thing to do is upset my wife.

She will have no idea where my glasses are. In fact, I hear her now, shouting to me indignantly from upstairs: “I have no idea where your glasses are!”

Unfortunately, this minor episode is not exceptional in my life. I cannot find this, I cannot find that. I am always looking for something. On average, three items are lost, or at least misplaced or unaccounted for, at all times. On many days, searching for them occupies an estimated 20 percent of my waking hours.

That is the given, the unchangeable. What may be changeable is my reaction to these episodes. Why must the realization that my glasses are not where I thought they were produce an upsurge of fury? Why can’t I “take it in stride”? After all, lost items usually reappear of their own volition eventually. Why not relax and wait for the happy event to occur by itself? Why waste time looking, or worrying?

Why. Always “why.” The word itself implies that the explanation for the problem, if not the cure as well, lies in the realm of reason. Actually the explanation lies deep down in the psyche of the elderly. Along with age come easily frayed nerves once one’s capacity to cope with everyday tasks and occurrences comes into question.

On the “Where is it?” front there are two issues. The first is how to keep from losing anything. The second is how to react once the realization dawns that the thing is lost.

I am full of well-tested ideas on the first issue, although I have found friends reluctant to the point of insult to adopt them. If we arbitrarily combine the not-forgetting issue with the not-losing issue, I call attention to the efficacy of the little black datebook I carry with me at all times. In addition to reminding me where I am supposed to be today and where I was yesterday, this notebook includes certain important data that I might not otherwise be able to find promptly if needed. I would be devastated if that information were lost, or seemed to be lost.

I realize that the modern man should have all of this computerized, and my pocket diary should be a pocket computer that could provide not only complete personal data but also the history of the world. Nevertheless, I favor the comfortable feeling of a pocket notebook, which in fact also carries, I am proud to say, the phone numbers and e-mail addresses of an enormous number of people, in a capacious pullout that can be transferred to the next year’s notebook every twelve months. I make a photocopy of these pages annually in case I lose the notebook.

In fact I never lose this notebook. All right, I did once leave it at an ATM machine, but it was soon returned. And another time it fell out of my pocket in a taxicab in Washington, D.C. The cabdriver recovered it, found my surname in it, phoned a man in Virginia with that surname, and mailed the notebook to him. When he received it he called me in New York and mailed it to me at home. He also turned out to be a distant cousin I had never heard of. We discussed getting together someday, but we never did.

As I was saying, I never lose this notebook. I never lose my wallet from my back pocket either, although I realize that a pickpocket may one day get the better of me. One reason I don’t lose these items is that I am constantly aware of them. Although the effort to keep track of my notebook and my wallet comes to me naturally by now, that effort probably uses up a significant amount of available brain power at any given hour of the day. This makes the loss of other less precious items more probable than it ought to be.

Cell phones and reading glasses have made matters worse. These glasses must be in one pocket and, normally, the cell phone in the other in order to create the complete man, ready to stride forth into the world. Add in house keys and peaked cap–that’s a lot to remember when leaving the house.

Then there is the reaction issue. I am horrified to find that I can no longer perform routine tasks as well as I imagine myself to have performed them when younger. Trying to restore my calm, I bring to mind my father’s reaction when he was forced to confront the mental decline that age had thrust upon him. Elsewhere I have told the tale in the context of memory failure, but it serves here as the model to follow when the realization of loss threatens to expel sanity.

My father was 85 at the time. I would take him out on afternoon drives in the countryside. He grudgingly accepted that he was too old to drive, but he was certain he could still serve as navigator. He would sit next to me with a road map spread across his lap, trying to figure out where we were. In a commanding tone he would direct me to turn left when I knew I should turn right, and right when I should turn left. He had no idea of our position on the map, but his manner put disobedience out of the question.

By the time we had driven past three miles of cow pastures he had realized his mistake. Turning mild, he would remark, “You made a wrong turn.” Then he would drop the map and close his eyes. At that point I became the navigator.

I was angry at the time, but looking back I admire his calm. He was calm when he lost things too. In his later years he lost at least one camera per trip, and by his late 80’s he could rarely lay his hand promptly on anything he needed. But he lived to 95.

Difficult as I know it to be to follow my own rules, I have developed a few to ease me past the trauma of loss (or misplacement, as I prefer to call it). The first rule is, Do not admit that it is lost. The inability to lay one’s hands upon a specific object the instant that it pops into consciousness that its whereabouts are unknown does not mean after all that the object is “lost.” The temporary inability to find it does not rise to the level of loss, or even misplacement, although I do get nervous when I can’t find my credit card, so I report it as “lost” promptly.

We all go blank now and then. Usually the best response in the beginning is to place a different issue at the forefront of consciousness. Do not allow a random idea that pops into your head–“It’s lost!”–to take over your whole brain, and your life. Expel it with the thought of the good dinner ahead.

The second rule is, Keep the problem to yourself. No one else must realize that you think you have lost something, especially close members of the family. You should not share your anxiety with them. They won’t know how to help you anyway.

The third rule is, Don’t gloat when you find it, and don’t pout when you don’t. This rule is very hard to obey, so I recommend as much isolation from others as possible when either situation prevails. “Dear, please do not talk to me for the next few days unless I say it’s all right,” you might tell your wife. She is likely to feel relief at such an opportunity. If she is of too inquiring a turn of mind and likely to pipe up “Why?” this ploy is not to be recommended.

An odd device in my repertoire is useful when suspicion arises, as it not infrequently does, that my wife took the lost object and failed to return it to its proper place. I am smart enough to know that I will probably be found wrong in this, so I either suppress my suspicion or, if I speak, disguise it.

I begin with an apology. “I’m sorry Jan, but I can’t find my (object). Did you borrow it by any chance?”

I tried this recently when the object involved was my credit card.

“No,” came the answer in a pleasant tone. “But you used it last night in the restaurant. Did you look in the pocket of the shirt you were wearing? I’ve seen you put things there.”

Bingo!