People leave a lot of stuff behind at the library I work at. While occasionally there will be something bizarrely interesting, like the machete we had in our lost and found years ago, the usual suspects range from the endless unclaimed flash drives, to water bottles, which we accumulate a forest of on top of our lost and found shelving, to the endless items of mildly grubby clothing taking up an unreasonable amount of drawer space. Most of these are never claimed. Some are probably mourned by their owners, but I suspect most aren't, and sometimes I think losing something at my library is, for people, oftentimes merely an unconscious way to throw something away without having to commit to it.
I have been confounded by two kinds of things that people lose here. One is full sets of keys. If they lost their keys, how did they drive home? And if they defied the American Suburban rule and took a bus or walked, how did they unlock their door at home? And if they walked to the library and are homeless, why do they need a big keyring?
The other thing we regularly get left behind are canes, and even occasionally a walker. If one relies upon such a device to walk, one would think that not having it and trying to walk would be a clear signal that, well, one doesn't have it. Upon returning a cane today, one that has been behind the front desk of my library for a few days, I reconsidered this situation. If one has to lose and leave behind something at my library, a cane is the best of them. After all, if one is hobbling with assistance into our library, but after a few hours of hanging out here feels so spry that they can blithely walk out completely unaided, who even needs a cane? Leaving a cane behind is a symbol of healing.
The library has healed them! Now if they could just find their damn keys.
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