With This Ring
I’m not superstitious or especially sentimental, and that’s a good thing because over the years I’ve lost some precious pieces of jewelry – two or three watches, innumerable earrings, and even a few wedding rings.
When we married my husband gave me a simple band – not of gold or silver but of jade. I lost it.
He also once gave me a ring set with a lovely pink opal. One day I looked down at my hand and although the ring was still on my finger, I saw that the opal had fallen out. I searched, but it was nowhere to be found.
And once in an antique shop in London we bought a beautiful diamond cocktail ring for me. I lost that one too.
Then one summer at the beach I took off my wedding ring to put on suntan lotion. Apparently the ring fell off my lap onto the sand, and I forgot about it until we got home. We went back to the beach to search but it was like looking for a needle in the proverbial haystack.
And once we were having a marital dispute in the car,. As we approached the Brooklyn Bridge I threw my wedding ring out the window onto the FDR Drive. Did we even try to find that one? Fuhgeddaboudit!
But here’s a story with a happier ending. At work one day I was in the teachers’ bathroom and took off my wedding ring to wash my hands. I didn’t realize I’d forgotten to put it back on until I was home later that night.
The first thing In the morning I called the school and left a message for John our wonderful school custodian asking him to look on the sink in the teachers’ bathroom for my wedding ring.
I got to school about an hour later and went straight to John’s office. When he saw me, without a word he dropped to one knee. I put out my left hand and John slipped the ring on my finger.
– Dana Susan Lehrman
Dana Susan LehrmanThis retired librarian loves big city bustle and cozy country weekends, friends and family, good books and theatre, movies and jazz, travel, tennis, Yankee baseball, and writing about life as she sees it on her blog World Thru Brown Eyes!
www.WorldThruBrownEyes.com
Wow, Dana, all those rings you lost (or threw out the window) would make me very sad, but you write about them very amusingly. Of course I love the ending with John the custodian going down on one knee to slip your wedding ring on your finger. Perfect!
Thanx Suzy, yes it is a good thing I’m not too sentimental!
It is certainly good that neither of you is too sentimental or easily upset about these losses. I guess the rings are just things, while it’s the relationship that matters. I had the stone fall out of my original engagement ring and never found it. Insurance bought me a new one, which I have grown to love. I also had my original wedding ring restored and love to look at it on my finger after an absence of many years. Color me sentimental, I guess!
Yes Laurie, actually my husband is more sentimental than I am. I was once on a bus taking my late mother-in-law’s jewelry to a jeweler to be appraised. They had lived in South America when my husband was a child and she had several beautiful silver rings and pins, not necessarily of great monetary value but of sentimental value of course.
Sitting on the bus I took the small case out of my large tote bag to look at it, and when I got to my destination and stood up I meant to slide the case back into the tote. Instead it apparently fell to the floor of the bus and I didn’t realize it until I got to the jeweler’s. It was never found, and needless to say my husband was quite upset!
I’m with Suzy. I would be heartbroken if I’d lost all those rings. I am SO sentimental. I still have rings that my grandfather (who owned a jewelry store) gave me when I was 3 and one when I was 5 – guess who is going to get those! But your last episode does take the cake. I love that John got down one knee. Yes, just perfect!
Yes Betsy, it’s lucky I’m not so sentimental, but I do have artwork and some housewares of my mother’s that I would be sorry to lose or break.
And I wonder, could those rings of yours be going to little Rosa?
Of course – I hope she likes jewelry! I finally have a girl to give all my stuff to. My grandmother’s youngest brother played in the Marine band on the ship that took Woodrow Wilson to France to sign the treaty that ended WWI. He brought back a doll for my mother. I have that too. Too precious to play with, but a real treasure and something that could decorate a little girl’s room.
Wonderful that you still have that doll Betsy, altho I shouldn’t be surprised!
I don’t have the “ring-loss” record that you do, Dana, but somehow over the years I have misplaced the engagement ring I had from my now former husband. The wedding band is still in my jewelry box, so I can only guess that a one-time helper of my housecleaner (the housecleaner is completely honest) made off with the diamond ring. It was rather modest and I don’t miss it, really, but also don’t like the idea of it being stolen. Oh, well rather like you, I am not super sentimental, and often things are just things.
Glad I’m not the only unsentimental gal here Marian, but I guess my ring loss record is a dubious honor!
(For the record, after an earlier divorce I sold my rings, smart huh?)