One Lost Earring, Two Stories, Infinite Blessings

2 min

I reached up to remove my earrings—first the left, then the right. But the right one was gone.

For a moment, my stomach dropped. I retraced my steps in my mind, hoping I had already placed it somewhere safe. But it wasn’t there. It was lost.

These weren’t just any earrings. They were vintage gold teardrops—elegant, stylish, with just the right weight to feel substantial yet delicate. Since last summer, they had become a signature piece—one I loved to wear. They framed my face just so, catching the light in a way that made me feel effortlessly refined. I had reached for them often, and in many ways, they had become part of my expression.

At first, I felt the familiar pang of loss—that instinctive grasp for what was just here but no longer is. My mind rushed through all the places it could be, the futile hope that maybe, if I searched just a little longer, I could will it back into existence. But then, something surfaced—a memory, a lesson I hadn’t realized was already planted in me.

A few weeks ago, while playing a working version of the Kume conversation card game, one of the prompts led Baba to tell a story I had never heard before. He shared that, years ago in Guinea, he had a pair of gold earrings made for me when I was a child. At the same time, he had a gold ring made for my mom—a ring I know well, one she still wears from time to time. But the earrings? They had been meant for me, for a later time. And yet, somewhere along the years, they disappeared. My mom didn’t know where they were. Baba didn’t know where they were. They had simply been lost to time.

When he told me this, I felt an immediate sense of devastation. Gold is deeply valued in my culture—not just as adornment, but as an inheritance, a connection to lineage, something precious meant to be passed down. The idea that something created just for me had been lost before I even knew of its existence felt like an erasure of something sacred.

But Baba, in his calm way, said something that stayed with me:

"Wherever those earrings are, they have become an offering. An offering to the spirits. And perhaps, in that offering, they have ushered blessings into your life."

Standing in my apartment, realizing that my teardrop earring was lost, I thought of that.

It wasn’t just gone. It was given.

And suddenly, the feeling in my stomach shifted.

So often, we hold onto things—material, emotional, even relationships—with a grip so tight that their loss feels unbearable. We treat our possessions as markers of identity, as proof of our experiences, as something solid to tether us to a world that is constantly shifting. And yet, the more tightly we hold on, the more we suffer when they inevitably slip through our fingers.

Had I let myself dwell in the loss, it would have erased the beauty of the night. Instead of remembering the laughter, the conversations, the joy of the evening, I would have fixated on what was missing. I would have let absence overshadow presence.

Instead, I reminded myself: I had worn these earrings. I had loved them. And now, they had moved on. Maybe someone else would find the earring and delight in its beauty. Maybe it had fallen somewhere it would never be recovered, quietly slipping into the folds of time. Either way, it was okay.

Because loss is not always just loss. Sometimes, it is an offering.

And in the place of what is lost, something else always comes. A shift, a lesson, a blessing we may not even recognize. Perhaps the gold earrings my father had made for me long ago had been exchanged for the many beautiful things I have received in my life. Perhaps this lost teardrop earring will clear space for something new.

Unattachment is not indifference; it is trust. Trust that we are not diminished by what leaves us. That in letting go, we are making space for more. That loss, sometimes, is simply another form of giving.

And in giving, we remain open to receiving.

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