It was New Year’s Day 2006 and I was just about to wind down after a hectic Christmas season. We had a houseful of people with us over the holidays, including my mother up from Florida, and Brianna and Ryan, who were still living with us after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. It had been a special Christmas for all of us; the first one we had ever spent with both Brianna and Ryan.
I worked hard the entire day, disassembling the Christmas tree, putting away all the decorations, doing laundry, changing sheets, vacuuming, and cooking. The next day I’d be reluctantly returning to work after the Christmas break. As I was folding towels and putting them away in the linen closet, I felt my ring snag on the terrycloth. Looking down at my left hand, I was horrified to see four prongs surrounding an empty space where my diamond used to be.
My ring was fashioned from the same diamonds that were in my mother-in-law’s wedding ring. She died of breast cancer in 1997, 11 years after Rich and I were married, and my father-in-law gave me her diamond ring. He knew that his other daughter-in-law had a diamond wedding ring of her own, whereas Rich and I had exchanged gold bands on our wedding day. I was proud that Rich’s dad thought so highly of me and was touched that he wanted me to have the ring. Rich and I asked if he’d mind if we updated the setting to suit my own taste, and he readily agreed. Together with a jeweler, we designed a ring that I loved. It had a larger diamond set in four prongs at the center, a smaller diamond offset above, and several diamond chips arranged in a modernistic curve around the two bigger diamonds. The larger diamond was the one missing.
I began by searching thoroughly in the linen closet, removing every towel and sheet and shaking them out carefully over the dark colored carpet as I looked in vain for the sparkling diamond. Rich, the girls, and Ryan soon started helping me. Rich looked in the dryer lint trap and even disconnected the hoses to both the washer and dryer to see if it might have gotten caught in there while I was washing clothes. We took all the sheets off every bed in the house and then remade them. Ryan searched through the dirt in the vacuum cleaner bag. We dragged all the Christmas decorations out again and carefully unwrapped the tissue paper around each and every ornament. We looked through the trash cans in the house and the one outside. The six of us literally spent hours upon hours searching futilely for the diamond. As the night wore on, I felt more and more hopeless, the tears running down my cheeks as I continued to search. I remember Ryan assuring me that we wouldn’t give up; we’d look until we found it.
Well, diamonds are supposed to be forever according to the commercial, but this one sure wasn’t. It never did turn up again despite turning the house upside down. I subconsciously looked for it for weeks afterwards. There were countless times I’d glimpse something shining in the light and my heart would skip a beat as I’d stoop down to examine the object in question. It was always an inconsequential piece of tin foil or a shiny bit of metal. It’s amazing how many small specks of sparkle you see around you when you’re really looking.
Six years later, I’m still heartsick over the loss of that diamond. Through the ensuing years of the girls going to college, an open heart surgery, a wedding, the birth of a grandchild, and countless other expenses, replacing the diamond has never made it high enough on the priority list. The ring still sits in a drawer, with its empty hole gaping where the diamond used to be. Every time I catch a glimpse of it, the sadness washes over me once again and I quickly shut the drawer, unwilling to linger on the upsetting loss.
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