When I was a teenager and still had a ton of free time to burn, I spent six months on a holiday gift for my maternal grandmother - a very elaborte embroidery piece that would porbably take me upwards of six YEARS if I tried doing it now. You can see a picture here if you're curious, although the one I made had a different framing and slightly darker fabric.

My parents were up visiting my grandparents (both of whom are in assisted living) last weekend, and Mom came back with the disturbing news that it's gone. As in, not in Grandma's room at the home, and nowhere in their house. My mother turned the place upside down looking for it. And it's just.... gone.

She says there's a chance we might yet find it - she's writing a letter to one of the ladies at the care facility and asking that they keep their eyes open, in case some old bat thought it was pretty and wandered off with it and it is now hanging in her room.

I hope that's the case. These are people who have no clue what's going on, or what's socially acceptable or not. They're not wired right anymore. It wouldn't hurt as much if it was someone who just wasn't capable of knowing better.

The other possibilities are a) an employee of the facility, b) the lady who used to occasionally look in on Grandpa when he was still living at home, or c) one of my relatives. Given that Grandma's good set of silver is no longer a service for eight, I'm somehow doubting it was just misplaced in the shuffle.

Gods. It's not like I gave it just because I knew it would be returned. If I had it to do over again, even knowing how it would turn out, I'd still invest the time - because it gave Grandma a lot of joy for over a decade. But that someone would just TAKE something like that...

It makes me kind of glad that Grandma's mostly out of her head. She cried with joy when I gave it to her. It had a place of honor in the living room where she'd see it lots. She'd be devistated to know someone just made off with it.

Why do people DO that stuff to each other???

So, um, I'm going to be completely selfish and make a request. It's not for my grandmother, because I really don't think she'd notice the difference anymore. It's because there's not a whole lot of her left, and I wanted to be able to hang it in my house after she died and remember her every time I looked at it, and I was up crying until 3AM because it's a very real possibility that something I sunk my heart into for six months is now decorating the wall of a fucking heartless klepto and I'll never see it again.

So anyone has a spare "send-it-home" thought they could think in its direction, I'd be grateful.