Lost Treasure Found

About eight years ago or so, while on a summer trip to Nova Scotia to visit with my mother, we received a phone call. It was from my Father-in-Law. He was calling from my house. That he wished to speak with me and, not his own daughter, was indicative that something out of the ordinary was going on. When I got on the line, he cleared his throat first before speaking. When he did speak, it was not with the usual jocular familiarity of the man we call, “Poppa” at our house. This voice was the one he used in the Board rooms of the companies for which he worked. He was serious and authoritative. In solemn tones, he told me that during that afternoon, our home had been broken into and that we had been robbed.

It is funny what thoughts spring to mind at a time like this. My very first thought was for the safety of our cat, Ringo. He had been left at home for the week we were to be away. My wife’s Aunt and her parents were taking turns visiting our home during our absence. They promised to spend some time each day with Ringo so that he wouldn’t be too lonely. Their promise to do so was the only reason my wife, Keri, ever agreed to go on any trip. You see, Ringo was her cat. He was her furry little boy. He had been rescued from an animal shelter and loved Keri from the very first moment they had met. So, when my Father-in-Law told me there had been a break-in and, that he wanted to talk to me first instead of Keri, my very first thought was that the burglars had done something to Ringo and that I was going to have to break the news to my wife. I’m not sure how I would have had that conversation, to be honest.

So, it was almost a relief to hear that we had merely lost some material possessions. I’m not sure what Ringo must have been thinking as strangers rifled through closets and dresser drawers, looking for treasure that never really existed. But, whatever the case, they ignored my wife’s furry little boy and, instead, concentrated on taking whatever jewellery they could find, along with our desktop computer and a laptop that we had, too. For insurance purposes, the monetary value of the stolen items was under eight thousand dollars. Not the King’s ransom these burglars were hoping for, I am sure.

The burglary happened at the exact mid-point of our trip. I asked my Father-in-Law if there had been any structural damage to the house and he said that, aside from a window screen that had been pulled off that, no, the house was ok. There was mess, for sure but, no broken window glass or smashed in doors. We were lucky, in that sense. The phone call ended with an agreement that we would not tell my wife or daughters about this until we arrived back in Toronto at the airport. There was nothing we could do about anything from where we were. As well, we thought that my own mother might get upset if she knew this had happened because we were away visiting her. So, it was decided that everyone would get to enjoy the rest of the vacation as planned. No need to ruin things with this news. My terrific in-laws promised to tidy the house after the police had concluded their investigation so as not to upset my two children upon our return. Hopefully, despite the loss of jewels and technology, we would return to our home and everything would seem almost normal.

I broke the news to Keri and the girls after we had arrived at the airport in Toronto and were putting our suitcases back into our car. Needless to say, they were shocked. Keri immediately asked about Ringo. The girls asked about their rooms. I told them all that I knew and said that Poppa had promised that things were ok. The hour and a half drive was quieter than normal. Finally, we arrived home. I asked everyone to wait outside while I went in first. I wanted to make absolutely sure that an emotionally-scarring experience wasn’t awaiting us beyond our front door. So, inside I went. And…….everything seemed……well……pretty much just as we had left it. The house was clean. Our furniture was all there. There were a few small things out of place because Gramma and Poppa didn’t know exactly where they had been previously but, other than that, it didn’t look too bad. So, I went back out and invited everyone inside.

A thorough look was had by all. The girl’s bedrooms were left untouched, from what we could see. I am sure that the burglars looked in from their doorways, saw stuffed animals and toys and figured that there was nothing of value there so they quickly moved on. When I explained this to the girls, they were almost offended that a burglar would think that they had nothing of value to steal.

For Keri and I, we began a more thorough search to determine what actually had been stolen. It wasn’t as easy a task as you might think. Keri found her jewellery box empty. But, when asked to list what had been in it, she had a hard time remembering everything. For those of you reading this post, could you list everything in your jewellery box right now if you had to? We saw that our sock and underwear drawer had been rearranged which, immediately, made Keri slightly nauseous. There was lots of laundry that took place that day we arrived back home, let me tell you! But, overall, as far as we could tell, nothing was missing except the jewels and the two pieces of technology.

But, as you all know, it is often not the monetary worth of something that gives an item value. We all have in our possession, items that hold, what we call, sentimental value. They are items that help us recall a favourite memory or else, were given to us by someone special. They may just be, in reality, a photo or a trinket of some sort but, to our hearts and minds, they are as important as if they were bars of solid gold. For us, the biggest loss came when we realized what was missing when it came to our computers. Keep in mind that, even though this incident occurred less than a decade ago, it was still a time before “Cloud” technology existed. There was no magical place where everything on our computer was safely stored for a fee. In those days, we saved what was important directly on our computer. So, as we thought about what was there, we realized that we had actually lost something incredibly valuable to us. The thieves had in their possession, unbeknownst to them I am sure, all of our photos and videos of the kids up until that point in their lives. Leah was five or six at the time and, Sophie was two or three years old. As parents and/or grandparents, you can imagine how many photos and video clips there were. First steps. First Christmases. First swimming lessons. First everything. All of it gone or, at least, all of it in the hands of thieves. If the thieves had been smart, they could have bargained with us for the safe return of those photos and videos. In doing so, they may have actually realized the King’s ransom that they had sought because we would have paid any price to get those memories back. But, alas, all was lost.

Our computer had been an iMac from Apple. They have a feature that enables you to track the location of your computer if it ever becomes lost or stolen. I activated that feature and found out that it was somewhere in North Cobourg. The police didn’t seem to think that was helpful information so, nothing more came of that. Apple, also, has a feature that enables you to remotely lock your computer. I did that so, at least, the thieves couldn’t look at our images and mock them or manipulate them in any way. Then, after six or so weeks of our computer being lost, Keri and I decided to take the third and final step available to us from Apple and that was, to remotely wipe the hard drive of our computer clean. In doing so, it would erase every file and leave an empty shell in its wake. Did we really want to give up any hope of recovering our iMac and all that it contained? I looked at Keri and she at me. We both knew what had to be done. So, I activated the remote wiping feature. And, that was that. Even if we ever got our computer back, those childhood photos and memories were gone. That was the worst moment for us.

But, Life is nothing if not resilient. We got an insurance cheque and got new computers. Keri bought a few pieces of jewellery to replace what she lost. The girls continued to grow up. We lived our lives, made more great memories and took more photos and videos. This time, having learned our lesson, we made back-up copies on external hard drives and took out a storage plan “on the Cloud”. We back up our hard drive every day. The last time I checked, we had over 10,000 photos and video clips saved. I’m not sure if that is a lot compared to everyone else but, we have a good visual record of our lives from the point of the robbery forward. That means a lot to us.

Then a miracle happened. My Father-in-Law is now retired but, in his day, he was a financial manager and sat on the Boards of several charities and corporations. He continues to dabble in this sort of work to this day. Consequently, he maintains an office in his home. Last week, while preparing to export a presentation he had prepared, he rifled through one of the drawers in his desk for an external USB drive. Apparently, he had dozens of these memory sticks kicking around. He grabbed one at random and plugged it into his computer. Before doing so, he checked the contents of the USB drive and was startled to discover that it was filled with a dozen of our favourite videos we had taken of the girls as pre-schoolers. None of us can remember exactly how or why he would have come into possession of these videos on this particular USB drive. But, like ghosts from the past, there these video clips were.

I tried to load one into this post but, I keep getting error messages that “this type of file is not permitted” so, maybe, the technology used to record them is too old to function properly anymore. So sorry. But, the videos work fine for us on our computer and they have been stored safely “on the Cloud” and backed up daily so, they will never be lost again. In the midst of all that is dark and worrisome about our world at the moment, into our lives has come this beautiful ray of sunshine in the form of lost treasure, found.

So, what are the lessons you can take from our experience? For starters, back up your computer files in some way beyond your actual computer hard drive. That way, if you ever lose your physical computer, the contents are safe and ready to be downloaded in their entirety once you have a new machine in place. Secondly, make a list of the model numbers and serial numbers of the technology you own and keep it is a secure location. For example, we didn’t know the serial numbers of our desktop or laptop computers that were stolen so, even if the police had found them, they would have no immediate way to determine if they were ours. Finally, if you are planning to leave your home for an extended period of time, make sure you have some lights on timers so that they will turn on and turn off without you having to be there so as to give the appearance that you actually are still at home. Apparently, our thieves had been watching our neighbourhood and had noticed that our house was dark at night for a couple of days. That invited closer scrutiny as the week went on until, they determined we actually weren’t home and they decided it was safe enough to break in.

If you have ever been robbed, in person or while away, you know the sense of violation that goes along with such an act. It is creepy knowing someone was in our house, touching our things and doing, who knows what, with what they had stolen. If this has ever happened to you, I am so sorry. No one deserves to have this happen. In the end, despite the mistakes that we made in not having proper file back-up systems, not having our serial numbers written down and not having our lights on timers when we were gone, the fact remains that burglars are jerks who make bad choices. We are thankful that Ringo was not hurt during this incident. We are doubly grateful to have 12 of our priceless videos back, as well. I guess it all comes down to what you define as being “valuable”. For us, our memories are our treasure and, thanks to Poppa, we have some of those memories back.

Thanks, as always, for reading my posts. I hope that you enjoyed this one. Feel free to comment below with your thoughts and feelings about this story or about similar experiences you may have had. Thanks again. Bye for now.