The last weeks I left my passport on the same place. Because this was the one thing I should not forget or get lost in any way.
Then on the day of my departure (april 8th) I thought it would be wise to put it in the sleeve of my laptop. Because my laptop had almost the same status. I also had an online meeting early in the afternoon. So I cleaned the house were I had been the last month.
I went outside in the sun and did my meeting there. When meeting was over I would pack up the last things including my laptop in the sleeve and passport in the sidesleeve of it.
There I was walking to my car in Hulshorst with my laptop in my hands. Put al the things in my car …at least that was what I thought…
I drove then to a very close friend in Haarlem where I would stay the night and leave in the morning for Schiphol. Arrived in Haarlem, made some jokes to my friend and the I wantend to pick up my laptop to show him some emergency things in case there would happen something to me.
So I picked up….euh…where was it? It didn’t bring it inside this appartment. So I must have left it in the car. But I could not remember seeing it there when I got out of the car. A little panic started. But it would be there. Turned the car almost upside down…it wasn’t there!!!
Then the panic started to feel stronger. But I still have my passpor…SHIT, NO, I left it in the sidesleeve.
OH MY GOD!!
I realised in a few seconds what that would mean.
- No travelling to curacao
- Losing the money
- Staying here and find another place to sleep
- Buying a new passport
- Buying a new laptop
- Losing all data from the laptop…oke, I had a backup
- Last but not least…my inner process would have an enormous delay
My heart raced and beated very heavy. As if a freighttrain was running over it.
I must have left it outside on the table…but I remember it carrying it to my car.
The panic was huge. Inside me the words:”I don’t know, I really don’t know what to do” were louder then I ever heard in me.
But in the “I don’t know” I called the landowner of the place in Hulshorst. He luckily answered the phone. Albeit he had only 1% battery left. He was not at the land he owned. But in his clever mind he said he could make me member of the app group of his land. Then his battery died.
But in the last moments of his battery he made me member of the app group.
In the app group, I placed a text-call. If there was someone there who could take a look at the place where I did the meeting. Rather fast a woman named Esther reacted and said she’d take a look.
Those 10 minutes were absolutely horrifying for me. My heart…my mind…I don’t know! My friend urged me to step in his car, so he would drive me back to Hulshorst. I did, I can not vow that if I had to drive, it would be oke…I did not trust myself to drive…and then my stress must be really high.
In the car I called Esther. She was there and saw nothing that looked like a laptop. My panic went even higher. But in her brightness she asked me if I did drive to the left or right when leaving this off-road country road. I almost lost all my hope. I said to the right.
She then said she would walk this off-road until she came to the asfalt road.
After 10 minutes, and again horrifying stressful minutes…PING. An app from her…with a photo. On it a black and white photo of the sleeve of my laptop. With a mobile number.
Sitting in the car, next to my friend. I crashed, I cried, tears from release, and gratitude. I called the number, he answered. Gave his address and we drove to it.
Esther: you saved my day, and more than that!
To recapture: I had left the sleeve with laptop and passport in it on the roof of my car. It drove with me for 300 meters and slipped of the roof on the country road. The finder was walking there with his dog, picked it up, went home, took a picture, printed it out, did it in a plastic sleeve and pinned it on a tree.
I doubt if I would have found it, because when again back in Hulshorst it was already dark. And would I have had the idea to search the road? Would I have seen the print in the dark in my stress? I really doubt.
I had my laptop back and my passport, we drove back.
Gratitude towards Esther, my friend who drove me, to the landowner, to the honest finder.
And to the universe who showed me a miracle.