Then the library book vanished. Then a grocery bag disappeared on the way home (as did the dairy yogurt inside of it, the one that had been on sale). Then my daughter’s school form that was due yesterday. By the time I realized that the earring was gone, too, it wasn’t about the jewelry.

It was about everything I couldn’t keep together.

I tried retracing my steps. Back to the kitchen, the laundry room, then the bedrooms. Every drawer I opened was a reminder of something else that needed cleaning or fixing — a leaky faucet I kept forgetting to report, a pile of socks waiting for matches, a drawer jammed with crumpled art projects and stray batteries. Each little mess felt like a whisper of everything slipping through my fingers.

Somewhere along the way, I sat down on the floor and cried.

It was just an earring, but it felt like proof. Proof that I was losing pieces of myself — my control, my competence, my calm.

That night, after the kids were in bed, my husband brought me a cup of tea. He didn’t ask about the mess or why I’d cried into the laundry. He just said, “Sometimes Hashem hides things for a reason. Maybe it’s to slow us down a bit.”

It wasn’t the kind of wisdom you write on a sticky note, but it sat with me.

Maybe I needed to lose the earring to find something else — something quieter, more tender than control.

I’d been carrying so much — appointments, forms, groceries, tantrums, expectations — all stacked in a precarious balance. Maybe I needed to loosen my grip on the chaos and accept that not everything has to be held so tightly. Maybe this was about trust. Trust that what was truly mine wouldn’t vanish just because I stopped chasing it.

The next morning, I found the earring under the baby’s crib.

Of course I did. But it didn’t feel like winning. It felt like being reminded.

Things get lost. Sometimes we do, too.

But we are always held.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 953)