It’s time to tell you something that is a really big deal to me…..

but I couldn’t talk about it.

If you have been following my blogs, you know that I’m not sentimental about very many things but I am sentimentally attached to my wedding ring. My husband and I are in our 43rd year of marriage and I think right around year 15 we switched out my teeny, tiny, cheap wedding ring that was all we could afford since we got married when we were still going to college. We bought a nice ring – I described it as exchanging my ‘chip’ for a ‘carrot”. Then we started a tradition of every 5 years growing the ‘carrots’ or adding additional small rings. My ring became a symbol to me of all the blessings and hard work involved when you stay married over many decades.

Our 35th wedding anniversary was 4 days after my son, David Glasser, who was a Phoenix Police Officer, was killed in the line of duty. Obviously, there was barely a mention of our anniversary. After the dust settled and we could take a breath, we went and added a bunch of small blue sapphires to my ring – a way to always remember Davey. That was when my ring became the only jewelry I regularly wear other than my blue memorial bracelet with Davey’s name on it.

It was also when my ring took on a higher level of importance to me.

If you’ve been following me, you also know I regularly take my ring to a major jewelry store to be cleaned and checked because they insure the stones if one of them should fall out. Three years ago I took it in and a stone was loose so they sent it in to be fixed.

A couple of days after dropping it off, I received a call telling me the ring – along with a whole box of other’s people’s jewelry – was stolen. I couldn’t believe it! I never take the ring off except at night and there is only one place it goes when I take it off. I never take it off because I don’t want to lose it. The manager of the jewelry store cried with me on the phone and then told me they would replace it. I was surprised what a good job they did of replacing it – it looked like my old one and they actually added some value to it. It didn’t make up for not being ‘my ring’ but there was nothing else to be done.

The new part of this story starts last November when we were in Phoenix mainly to spend time with our grandchildren who live there – Davey’s two children. The last day we were there, I woke up, got dressed and reached for my ring in the ring box I always put it in at night when I travel.

It wasn’t there!

I immediately knew I was in big trouble because I had absolutely no where else I could look. No where I would put it. There is no scenario that makes sense in figuring out why it wasn’t in that box.

We were staying in an Airbnb and I spent several hours that day looking everywhere for my ring. I spent most of that time in the area around the night table next my bed where my ring box was because that is the only place I took it off. I spent a lot of time facedown on the floor with a flashlight hoping to see a sparkle show up somewhere.

Nothing. So we went home. I let the owners of the place know I had lost it in case they found it. They contacted me a day later saying they looked everywhere and couldn’t find it. I continued having the feeling that the ring wasn’t gone so I looked through all of my bags and suitcases – every pocket, every corner – several times. Nothing.

I also discovered that the loss of my ring was not covered under my home owners insurance unless I had a special rider. I’m sharing that information in case you didn’t know it.

So I got out my mother’s wedding ring and just told myself I was fine – I would wear her ring for the rest of my life. It’s a great ring. But I wanted my ring. I found out I couldn’t talk about – it was just too much. The last of my three older brothers had just passed away, leaving me the only one of my immediate family left. I lost my mother and father, all three of my older brothers, and I had lost my son. Losing my ring took me over the edge and I felt I had hit the place where I had lost way too much, I couldn’t talk about.

The only person I talked to about it was God – and I talked to him often. Whenever I was upset about my ring, I would tell God, ” I know you know where my ring is, and I want you to give it back to me.” When I was in a better mood, I would ask him to give it back to me and I would add a ‘please”. I continued to do this for months.

Then, last month in March, we went back to Phoenix to spend time with our grand children and friends. We stayed at the same Airbnb and I felt that my ring was there, it was not gone. So I continued to look for it all over including getting facedown on the floor with a flashlight by my nightstand which was the only place I would have taken it off. Nothing.

We came home to Denver and started unpacking. Right before we left our Airbnb, I saw a pair of socks on the floor in front of my nightstand and I grabbed them. I had used these every day as my ‘travel slippers’. I stuck them in a side pocket of my backpack – a pocket I never usually used.

While unpacking, I grabbed the socks out of the side pocket and threw them in the clothes hamper. I noticed something else was in the pocket so I looked – and there was my ring!!

Unbelievable!

I yelled to my husband who was in the bathroom- “Guess what I just found!” He could tell it was a big deal so he said, “Your ring!” Yep – there it was, in this side pocket of my backpack in one of those open, netted pockets that you put a bottle of water in.

How did it get in there?

I can tell you some of the ways it didn’t get in there –

I know for certain it wasn’t in that pocket when we got home from Phoenix in November. I looked in every corner and pocket of every bag, suitcase, backpack, several times – including that pocket.

I know for certain it wasn’t in those socks. I wore them every day and they were sitting right where I was laying facedown on the floor several times that week with a flashlight looking for my ring.

I have decided I will probably never know how my ring got in that pocket. I will never know where it was for 4 months.

I have no idea how I lost it, but I definitely know Who gave it back to me.

Thank you, Father.