To the editor:
Sunday, Jan. 6, 2013, started out just like any other Sunday that my wife and I decided to go over to Grand Falls to visit her relatives and maybe take in the great dollar store they have in the mall. It has always been our custom since passports are not required to pull these out of our wallets, take them out of their protective sheaths and place them in the console until we get to the border.
This day was a bit different … unfortunately. The console was full, a coffee cup, a cell phone, various odds and ends. Now this is where my stroke of genius came in. Why not for the time being just put the cards and sheaths in the indented handle door grip, I felt they are right beside me and still in the car. It seemed like a nice temporary solution. I never stopped to think, what is going to happen to them if the door is swung open. I felt so smart when I came to the border, they were so handy, showed them to the border attendant and we were on our way.
We went to the mall and did some shopping and decided we would stop in to see some relatives on the way home. Driving by our relatives’ house, we saw they weren’t at home, so heading home was our next objective.
We were halfway home on the Trans-Canada when I thought it would be a good idea to get our cards together. This is when I took a cold shower! What cards … where are they? My passport and wife’s permanent resident card. Slowly it comes back to me. That’s right, I had them in the door handle grip, the door swung open and the cards must have fallen out. I didn’t tell my wife how bright I was to put them in the door handle, as she and I at present were heading into sheer panic.
How do we get back through the American border, how do we replace these if we can’t find them? We searched the car, our wallets, every possible place. No cards to be found. I suggested we had to go back to the mall, that they must have fallen out of the car “somehow” to hide what I knew had obviously happened.
Heading back to the mall, my wife said, “Pete, are you praying?” Charlene and I are both people of faith, and I knew that my stupidity and lack of oversight could be overcome with faith and trust that we would find our lost cards.
When we got to the mall parking lot, we realized that it had not been plowed recently and other cars had moved into the area where we believed we had been parked. We both got out and started in controlled panic looking on the ground for our lost cards. I went over more to the McDonald’s lot since we stopped there briefly. Charlene was walking around the parked cars in her search.
This is when a very kind man who was sitting in his car asked Charlene if there was something wrong. She explained that we had lost our passports, we believed, in this parking lot. He was concerned for us and got out of his car to help. Now, we had three people in the search.
We continued but to no avail. This gentleman said that if he were to find them then he would take them to the border for us. We thanked him and truly appreciated his concern.
The only other place they may have fallen out was at the Tim Hortons parking lot in the downtown area. We went down there to make a thorough search. We came away empty-handed again. Now, we were starting to think that we may not find them and we will just have to head for the border and take our medicine.
Then my cell phone rang … it was our son, Lance, in Caribou. Someone had found my passport and the sheaths and turned them in at the Hamlin border. Now, we knew that they were lost at the mall parking lot and we would go back to look for Charlene’s permanent resident card. Her card is white and will be harder to find.
We started our search again, this time I started to pray that my eyes would locate this maybe hidden card in the snow somewhere. We continued our search, however, no card was showing itself. I decided to go to the mall restroom, then in resignation we would head for the border.
On my way back to the car, I had my head down, scanning the ground and there it was, lying on top of the snow, the dark side of the card on top. Talk about relieved and grateful.
We went back through the Hamlin border, picked up my passport and sheaths and headed home very grateful to the very considerate man that we met that may have turned in my card. Losing your passports is not the way I would recommend anyone to have their faith enhanced, but it sure worked for us today.
Peter and Charlene Pinette
Woodland
