In late September, after returning from our wilderness cabin, I looked forward to lake fishing near our Eagle River home.

A fishing buddy took me fly fishing in his canoe at Mirror Lake. The four hours on the lake were non-cease catching, but I must admit the empty 12-ounce adult-beverage bottle he rescued from the water was larger than any one of our catches. The day was perfect until I got home and realized I had lost my 2-inch-long Swiss Army knife.

Searching the Jeep, my pockets and the tackle box, I couldn't find it anywhere. A next-day inquiry to my fishing buddy produced nothing but concern. Not wanting to put a damper on our day's outing, I reassured him I had another such knife.

Besides, once I found a pocket knife in the parking lot of an air terminal. My concern then was for the original owner to know the knife I found would be appreciated and given a good home by me. As for my lost knife, my fishing buddy was not to worry. Truly, I believed the knife would be in the hands of an appreciative new owner.

The thought of searching for it on the parking lots of Mirror Lake did not even cross my mind; the traffic of people there had certainly produced a winner/loser scenario.

A week passed and my fishing buddy went again to Mirror Lake. The next day, while out exercising, he gave me the fishing report — catching little ones of no size was again a blast.

I thought his story was done, but then he iterated a story about having found another empty 12-ounce adult beverage bottle floating on the lake, only this time there was a note inside.

The note implored the finder to return to the parking area of the boat launch, and there he would find a treasure. He did that — and indeed there was a treasure he felt under the foot of his boot and the many flakes of golden leaves on the ground.

My friend's story then stopped and with a grin on his face he reached within his pocket and pulled out my baby Swiss Army knife.

It was raining the day he told me that story, but nothing was damper than the many tears of joy that flowed from my eyes and transcended down my 70-year-old face.

The knife was one I had given my mother in the 1980s. In 1995 while visiting her down south, I emptied the trash she had thrown into her tiny receptacle in her bedroom. From it, I retrieved that Swiss Army knife, a St. Louis streetcar token dated 1919, my deceased father's driver's license, a necklace and a baby flashlight I had gifted her. All were leaving her life just as I knew the mom I knew was leaving my life. Shortly after, that she was diagnosed with a dementia like Alzheimer's.

My fishing buddy, other friends and I know who brought that knife back to the family. It was Mom. A day later, on what would have been Mom's 103rd birthday, I sliced a candled cupcake with that tiny blade of memories.

Brenda Rodgers has lived in Eagle River since 1977. She arrived in Alaska in 1976 as the spouse of military serviceman stationed at Fort Richardson. She has served in various municipal, state and federal positions, including the Peace Corps in Brazil, the U.S. Agency for Development in Vietnam, the U.S. Army in Korea and the United Nations. Over the years she has periodically written pieces for the Alaska Star.

This article published in The Alaska Star on Thursday, October 16, 2008.