Let’s say you have a watch that you received as a gift on an anniversary decades ago.   It wasn’t a Rolex, but it was pretty and it had special meaning.  Suddenly, it disappeared.  You rack your brains—go all over the house, look in the bathrooms, the kitchen, anywhere you might have taken it off to keep it dry. After a couple of days you give up.  How could you have lost it?  Or was it stolen by someone who was doing some  work in your house?  The truth is, I’d rather believe I lost it. I can always buy another one. But If someone  I trusted  stole it, I feel violated, hurt and betrayed.  Stolen is worse than lost, in most cases.

A stolen credit card is far worse than lost.  It means someone has found it or  taken it from your wallet,  and may have charged thousands of dollars before you realized it was missing.  Yes, this happened to my husband, but luckily , our card provider thought they were some strange  transactions, and notified us  before it went too far.

On the other hand,  if something  is lost, you have only yourself to blame.  That’s a little less painful. .  My mother died many years ago, but I still use her old wooden cane for daily walks. I have prettier canes, but I wouldn’t care if I lost them.  They can be replaced.  But if I can’t find my mother’s cane, I panic.  The cane gives me a strength and courage that can’t be bought.   I have some pretty canes that we’ve picked up in foreign  countries and like  to use them on special occasions.  But they do nothing to lift my spirits.  No one would want to steal my mother’s old  cane.  But once, when I thought I’d lost it, I was devastated.

There’s something unnerving about being the victim of a theft.  It means that the thief  has no regard for your rights or feelings.  They care only about themselves.  Is stolen worse than lost?   For me, it is.