On Sunday morning I lost my wallet at the grocery store. And it was a completely absent-minded mistake. So absent-minded, in fact, that I didn’t even realize it was gone until I got to work yesterday morning. I drove over to the supermarket to pick it up and braced myself for what I thought I wouldn’t find inside. I was pleasantly surprised to see all of my credit cards, my driver’s license, and even my bank card intact, but then I looked to where I keep my cash and my heart sank; it was empty. 

I don’t remember how much money I had in there – it certainly wasn’t any large sum or (thankfully) an amount that I can’t live without – but what the taking of that money represented stung more than the loss of the money itself. In an odd way, it would have been less disconcerting had everything been taken. After all, a despicable thief is indiscriminate. But taking just the cash smacked of cowardice, like taking candy from a baby simply because you can. The act is indecent, inconsiderate and just plain selfish.

Had the cash just fallen out of my wallet and been laying on the street it would be harder for me to find fault with someone picking it up for him/herself. But that wasn’t just abandoned cash waiting to be found. By virtue of the fact that it was in my wallet, there was ownership to it. There was a face and a name attached to it – literally, as it was sitting right behind my driver’s license. And it was just so arrogant of someone to simply presume that the fact of his/her wanting it was more worthwhile than the fact that it belonged to someone else. 

Had this happened to me before I had children, my thoughts on it would have ended there.  But being a mother has added a new dimension to how I see this. My first thought is “did this person even stop to consider whether I needed that money to feed my children?” And then I turn that thought on its ear: “maybe he/she needed the money to feed his/her own children” which, while not excusing the act, tempers my anger with a touch of sympathy. And then I wonder if this person might have taken the money in the presence of his/her children, and my tempered anger turns to indignation…”what kind of a teachable moment is that?” I wonder.  

I’m not naïve; I know these things happen. And I am trying to keep perspective about it – thankfully it was just some cash and not anything irreplaceable.  So I’ll try to convince myself that whoever took that money needed it to keep some clean, dry clothes on a child’s back, because that’s about the only way I can stomach the idea of someone doing something so unbecoming.    But that won’t stop me from being incensed about it, or finding a way to make it a teachable moment for my children.