Abandoned and forsaken, wet and dirty, from the shrinking snow bank.

       After wringing it out, it lay in my hand like a dead bird - a forgotten dream - a lost child. Childhood innocence emanated from the dulled pinks, whites and blues of the variegated yarn.

       My heart saddened as I envisioned a little girl vainly attempting to explain how it must have fallen out of her pocket on the way home from school.

      I pictured a mom fighting to maintain self-control, while recalling spending two days struggling to knit one pair from some yarn she had been given, because the store-bought mitts were just too expensive.

      Memories surfaced of my own children who, by the end of winter, always seemed to have had an assortment of mismatched mitts.

      My lips twisted into a wry smile as I thought of the many times my mother made strings to pass through my coat sleeves to connect my knitted mittens.

       I slowly and gently placed the tiny article on a nearby fence post, and idly mused if its owner would discover it as easily as I found my lost mitten memories.