I went on a family vacation recently to a beach condo. It was inside a gated community, so I had a pass I had to keep on the dashboard of my car to get in to the community every day.
One day me and David were driving to the grocery store to get some things for dinner. It was a gorgeous day. The sun shone brightly down on our two door car. We drove along, gazing at the palm trees along the road without a care in the world. On such a nice day I couldn't help but roll down the window for a fresh sea breeze.
It happened in slow motion. I lazily began to twist the lever that let the window descend into the depths of the car. The window was one inch down, and I could already feel the gentle breeze wisp my hair aside. I could smell the salt from the ocean a short distance away. The more I rolled down the window, the more I felt the wind. My hair began to whip around me. It felt like riding a gentle roller coaster on a warm Summer day. I closed my eyes for a brief moment to etch the moment into my memories. That is what pure joy feels like.
As soon as the window was all the way down I leaned back on my sun-warmed seat to relax, and that is when I saw it. The wind began to raise the edge of our pass off the dashboard. It slid towards the open window; slowly at first, then with more vigor. In my mind I was shouting for David to catch the paper before it exited the confines of our vehicle, but there was no time to shout to him. His own animal instincts that saved us in that moment. He snatched the paper up just as it was leaving the car and saved it from leaving us forever. David handed me the pass for safe keeping. I carelessly placed the pass back on the dashboard not thinking that anything would come of it. Mere seconds later we rounded a corner and the wind shifted directions. Before I had time to react I saw the paper lift off the dashboard. In one smooth motion it floated upwards, twisted, and flipped before my eyes. I couldn't process what I was witnessing. The wind gave one final gust and pushed the paper past me and out my window silently. It was as if the pass was never there in the first place. It was lost forever.
Or so I thought.
In the immediate aftermath David and I exchanged glances, silently asking one another, "Do we drive back to get it?"
"I think it's lost," I said, with despair in my voice. When put in a position to save the pass that allowed us access to our beach condo, I had failed. We would need to retrieve a new pass.
David, being the optimistic person he is, debated what action to take in his head. He then turned the car around, determined to find the lost pass. Understanding what he wanted to do, I straightened my back and began looking on the road for the blue paper. There were blue tinted shadows on the road that made it particularly difficult to see. We drove slowly wary of other drivers behind us that might want to pass our vehicle. When I had lost all hope of finding the missing paper, David was determined to keep searching. Not 100 yards further and something caught my eye. Could it be? Could we have really found the lost pass? I kept my thoughts to myself for a moment, not wanting to get my hopes up in the event that I was wrong. As we approached the spot on the road where I believed the pass to lie, I urged David to hastily stop the car. He pulled off to the side and there, between the two driving lanes on the road, was the pass to get into the community. I couldn't believe it. We had found it! David then opened his door and strategically ran towards the paper, dodging traffic along the way, as he retrieved the cherished pass. All was well, and we could continue our trip to the grocery store.
