Lost and Found: A Memoir

*Originally published on my Wordpress blog 05.22.2022

Book review: Lost and Found by Kathryn Schulz

Despite the five star rating, I hesitate to recommend this book. Yes, the writing is extraordinary, the insights are profound and real. The hard part is exactly that: it is so very real, so very full of truth. And the truth can hurt, especially when you are getting older. There was so much poignancy and bittersweetness in this book that it just plain hurt to read . Maybe it's just me, maybe I feel too much, but I finished it and all I want to do is crawl back to my solitary bed and weep. Life goes on, however. And that is part of Ms Schulz's message.

The "lost" in the title ostensibly refers to the loss of the author's father but she skillfully weaves in a thoughtful discussion of how enormous loss is in our lives. She reminds us that "it encompasses, without distinction the trivial and the consequential, the abstract and the concrete, the merely misplaced and the permanently gone....the world as it really is [is] marked everywhere by the evidence of past losses and the imminence of future ones." We grieve not only for our lost people but for our lost selves as well. We grieve the passage of time, the undoing of lives, the unsettling changes that cause us to question our very being. There is a place for loss in our lives but holding loss can make us feel insignificant and small.

Ms Schultz then turns her eyes to the "found" part of the title. There's where you find amazement. That's where our lives feel so brimming and momentous. And it's true. Pay attention and be amazed, as the poet Mary Oliver said. The world is a constant source for finding beauty and wonder. The author seques from the loss of her father to the found of new love. She writes eloquently about the discovery of Self and Other and what it means to find joy and a person to call home. Her words are tender and wide eyed. She is confounded by her wonderful find (and, she notes, isn't finding love often a surprise?). Ms Schultz's surprising find is a life partner but she makes plenty of room for the abundance of unexpected good moments in life . She notes that "it doesn't matter whether you believe that God has blessed you, that fate has smiled on you, or simply that in a stochastic world, very unlikely odds have broken down in your favor. What matters is that you feel the presence of some force outside yourself - one that, whether or not it is intrinsically benevolent, occasionally and indisputably produces benevolent ends."

Ms Schultz writes elegantly about the unfolding of this newly found relationship. I could sense the profound connection that the author feels toward her chosen partner but I am old. I have been around the block a few times and cynicism sits in the passenger seat. I wonder about all that this young couple will encounter, all the losses and all the founds yet to be had experienced. There's where bittersweetness enters the picture. There's where I hesitate to recommend. I am aware of how life can be a trickster in ways you never imagined. I fear for the author and what appears to me to be unabashed certainty that life will treat this couple well.

And, in fact, the author essentially does acknowledge that life is a mixed bag. In the final section of the book, she brings home the idea that finding always leads to losing. She writes of accepting the fact that "one of the most significant and difficult aspects of love, romantic and otherwise, is that it is terribly vulnerable to forces outside our control, and therefore terribly frightening. The corollary to 'Now has your bliss appeared' is 'Now , at any moment, it may vanish.'" Truth. And the older a person gets, the more of the vanishing that naturally happens. The older you get, the more that is lost and, I think, the less that is found. Hence my big sigh.

Okay, so this is definitely a five star book. The revealed truths are well worth considering and the extraordinary writing makes the reading a pleasure. Ignore my hesitancy to recommend. Perhaps that is just me. The book resonated in so many ways that it has left me stunned and unsure. In a short while, I will roll out of the bed that I retuned to. I will stretch, look out the window, see the sunrise, and decide to get up and make new discoveries. I will pay attention and be amazed. I will also thank Kathryn Schultz for making me feel alive.