Lost and Found

By Kelly McManus February 2026

I don’t mean to brag, but I’ve got the best sense of direction in my family. It’s really my only natural talent. I’m like a human compass. Unfortunately, it is not a great crowd-pleaser like being a gifted singer, artist, or athlete. I have yet to go to a party where someone says, “Hey, Kelly, what direction are we facing now?” All I can say is you people don’t get lost enough!

Admittedly, it would have been a lot more impressive before everyone got cellphones that can tell you not only what direction you are facing, but will also direct you precisely to the roadside cafe in Jawbone, Oklahoma where you had the best chicken-fried steak ever twenty years ago, and will also tell you precisely how many hours or months it will take you to get there depending on whether you choose to drive or walk.

It’s hard to compete with that, but when it’s your only superpower, you have to keep trying.

“Hey gals,” I’ll say to my hiking buddies as we struggle up a steep mountain trail. “Wanna know what direction we are heading?”

“We don’t care,” they’ll shout breathlessly in unison.

“North,” I’ll wheeze triumphantly.

Alice says, “My watch says we are facing precisely 28 degrees NW. In 259 steps, the trail will curve 12 degrees north. In 1/8 mile, if we look 45 degrees east, we will have a fabulous view. The trail flattens there, and it’s a nice place for a picnic. According to my watch, I’m also dehydrated, and my blood sugar is dropping, so that will be perfect.”

“What were you saying, Kelly?”

“That.”

I always thought that my talent for geography was inherited, although that seemed unlikely. After all, I am the daughter of Patrick McManus, a man legendary in his ability to get lost. When we would head into the mountains to pick huckleberries, it was just assumed Dad would disappear and be lost for a couple of hours. He was always looking for that perfect berry patch. And he never found it. When we would get tired of picking after a few hours, and Dad was still nowhere to be found, we’d all make our way down the mountainside to the car and start honking the horn. Eventually, a wild-eyed Dad would come crashing through the brush holding his berry-picking pail over his head to preserve its precious contents. Our family tradition was then to gather around the tail-gate of our station wagon to see who picked the most berries. Mom always won, and Dad always lost…by a lot.

I never even considered Mom as the genetic source of my directional genius. She didn’t drive, so that automatically disqualified her. But that was fine because no person in the world could turn our tediously picked huckleberries into the gourmet pies, cakes, and pancakes that she made. Now that was a talent I would have dearly loved to inherit, but alas, no. 

My grandparents on both sides of the family all came from the wilds of North Idaho or Northwestern Montana. A talent like mine would surely have come in very handy back in the olden days, but sadly, they had all passed away. My three kids were a dead end, too. Unfortunately, they take after their father. Wally has many talents, but he has never known where he is or where he is going his entire life. 

There was no need to even ask my three younger sisters. No, they did not have the gift. Nor had they been properly appreciative in their younger years when I had used my directional genius to rescue them when they, like our father, wandered out of the bounds of the huckleberry patch. Being older has not improved their appreciation.

“Hey Peggy, do you want to know what direction you are driving right now?”

“No.”

I was beginning to think maybe I was a genetic mutant, like the X-Men, only not nearly as cool. Who wants the same superpower as a homing pigeon? It was time to move on. I would never know where my internal compass came from.

After Dad died, I became Mom’s caregiver. We spent a lot of time together talking about the good old days. Mom had loved to travel more than just about anything else in her younger days. I think she made it to all the continents, but her favorite was Antarctica. We both always loved the old paper maps, so we would bring out the maps and the photo albums and have a grand time retracing her adventures. She had usually traveled with her sister Norma because Dad didn’t really care for big, exotic trips. This might have had something to do with his talent for getting lost. Even Dad didn’t want to get lost in Antarctica.

After we put the maps and pictures away, we were having some tea and laughing about some of Dad’s more humorous escapades while being lost, now that the trauma had worn off. It occurred to me to ask her how, in spite of his directional deficiencies, Dad always managed to get us all safely home from whatever mountaintop we were on in an area covering 3 states and 2 Canadian provinces.

“Oh, that was me,” she said matter-of-factly. “You girls were always fighting or sleeping in the back, so you probably never noticed. I just told him where to turn.”

I was getting intrigued. Most of the goat trails we ended up driving on wouldn’t have been on any map.

“Mom,” I asked excitedly. “You don’t happen to have the human compass superpower where you always know where you are and what direction you’re headed, do you?!”

“Don’t be silly, Kelly,” Mom said. “All I’ve got is a good memory and the common sense to always know where the sun is. It was a survival skill you needed if you were ever going to go anyplace with your dad.”

Huh. No special gift and no superpower. Just a good memory I already knew I had. Apparently, I had inherited that from my mom. I guess that was something. And, I suddenly realized, I, too, always knew where the sun was or should be without even thinking about it. I must have subconsciously absorbed that by watching my mom from a young age. Of course, that’s why I always innately knew which direction I was going, wherever I was.

Feeling somewhat deflated, I prepared to go home. 

“You’re not leaving without splitting the last piece of huckleberry pie with me, are you?” Mom asked.

No, I definitely was not. As I carried my slice of pie east to the kitchen table, I thought, well, I may not have any lousy pigeon superpowers, but I sure inherited a lot of gifts—the skills necessary to survive growing up McManus, the good memory to relive the joys of growing up McManus, and Mom’s huckleberry pie recipe. 

Oh, and I never get lost.