Lost

The day before the big move to New Zealand while trying to tie up last loose ends and making everything just perfect for the girls to move across the world, while trying to locate an old favorite picture for Micaela to put in a book to take to with her, the unthinkable and unexplainable happened, my iPhoto library was completely wiped out with the stroke of a key. I'm still not sure exactly what button I pushed or didn't push or how exactly it came about, but as the realization sank in, I was rendered speechless, a rare event indeed. I felt like I would certainly throw up, and then came the tears. I took some deep breaths and remembered I had been backing up my computer only for the last several months but surely that would take of things.

A search of my backup files revealed one of my more glaring faults, rarely taking advantage of the safety nets readily available at my fingertips. The last backup I had done was dated November 1, 2009. I could restore my photo library that was in place that date. That meant that the last 3 months of pictures were gone. Disappeared into thin air.

Pictures of birthday parties x 3. Pictures of Thanksgiving and visits from family and friends. Pictures of Christmas: hanging the stockings, the wrapping paper war, Auntie Mel's fabulous festive red dress, surprises from Santa, and many other memories. Pictures of Micaela's final basketball season defending the Lady Indians of Lumpkin County. Pictures of recent travels to New York. Pictures of long time friends as we said goodbye.

An emergency trip to the genius bar left me seriously in doubt of the qualifications for an Apple genius and with $100.o0 of data rescue software for no charge after the "genius" had erased any chance that the pictures would be easily recovered if recovered at all. Thank you to level headed parents that continue to watch out for me and speak up when I am unable to do so.

It's hard to describe the feeling of loss. How much I had relied on those digital images as a gatekeeper for the memories. How simple the day would have gone if I had only used what was readily available for preserving something so precious. Over the next weeks I spent countless hours with my laptop and the rescue program. I was amazed that I could find images from years back completely intact, and completely free from damage, but images taken of Big Much and her fabulous teacher we left behind in Georgia, taken only one week before was not recoverable. In the end, only a small percentage of the images were recovered. Everyone offered their advice about all the things I should have done. Add it to the reel already playing in my head.

Flash forward three weeks and while on a walk with the girls after school, Middle Miss dropped her brand new bright pink iPod Nano somewhere along the trail. We doubled back several times but could not find it anywhere. Amid sobs from a heartbroken girl, her sisters all offered great words of advice about how she should have left it in the car (translation: You're an idiot). There was nothing we could say that could compare with the voices already confirming that fact playing loudly in her head already. Quite miraculously, Middle Miss who is the shyest girl on the planet, on her own approached an older couple who was walking the same trail. They had found the iPod and she recovered what she had lost. I'm sure it will take much more than that to quiet the voices in her head.

For me, the lessons of the experiences were not about images or iPods. Those can be recovered or replaced or are soon forgotton, but the trust I lost in myself is not so easy to recover. Long after the items are a thing of the past, the proof remians that I am disorganized and just that stupid. And now, each night as I sleep, my computer is backing up. And with each backup the volume on the reel of voices is turned down just a decibel or two. But that is enough for now.

This week Iz celebrated her 11th birthday as week booked our first week here in New Zealand. She had partied it up at home with a slumber party with her friends and she had received all her presents because she would need them for the long day of travel (ipod Nano and North Face jacket). I still wanted to the day to be special, to stand out for her and to set the tone for our birthday celebrations while here. Her dinner request was pork tacos and she wanted to go to the Splash Palace after school. I spent the day driving among the three markets(grocery stores) in search of ingredients that would make the dinner and cake taste just like home. I came home missing key ingredients for the meal and couldn't find birthday candles anywhere. The chocolate cake recipe was in metric and the oven burned half the cake.

I felt like the mom in "The Poisonwood Bible" who takes her daughters to the African bush with her minister husband and insists she take Betty Crocker cake mixes with her so the girls birthdays would be "just right". What she discovers in the kitchen hut is that she has the cake mixes but is completely without the things that make them "just right". No eggs or oil to be found.

Frustrated, I walked outside to let all know dinner was ready and heard giggles and squeals of delight as they played in the huge yard. And I realized, we're not in the land of Target and Wal Mart anymore and that's a good thing. The birthday celebrations won't be the same. Instead of spending time and energy making everything feel like home, I need to spend that time and energy making this home. Not a hard thing when you look around and meet the people and feel the breeze and the sunshine.

We sat down to a dinner of pork tacos missing the black beans and jalopeno peppers and real limes or cilantro. All three girls excitedly talked about school and new friends and things they can't wait to see and do. The chocolate birthday cake did not have glowing candles. And as we made birthday wishes for Iz, they were not wishes for things, but for experiences here.

It turns out you don't need Betty Crocker after all.