Alley Hotshot

One grows attached to their avatar. I really liked how it evolved over the past five years and I really was proud of how I was able to construct such a fine looking avatar. Today, I go onto Second Life and my avatar would not download. Just that blasted puff of smoke is all I could get. I looked in my files and find that the shape has not loaded, so I double click it and get a message that they could not find my shape. The other shapes in my inventory worked fine, but naturally, my avatar no longer looks the same. How can I get my original shape back? Why is it missing from my inventory. The link is still there, but the SL gods tell me its missing. Help me recover my avatar!