For example, back in 2002 ish, I had this great necklace: a cubic zirconium star on a silver chain. I had bought it when my obsession with stars was at its height. I had just gotten my tattoo, and the necklace was the perfect compliment. I wore that necklace every day, no matter what, for about two years. Then, in the fall of 2002, I lost it. I knew I lost it on a visit home from college one weekend, but that was all I knew. I looked and looked, and finally gave up. Fast forward to the next spring, I went home for Easter Break. I was walking from my car towards the house when something shiny caught my eye from the ground. I couldn't believe my eyes when I realized it was my star. All dirty and almost completely covered with mud, but beautiful.
I mentioned in my last blog that I lost my grandmother's ring at my wedding. My grandmother died about 8 years ago, and I had her favorite amethyst and diamond ring. I wore in my wedding ceremony as my something old, to honor her memory. That night, about 4 AM, I woke up out of my deep sleep and realized I had no idea what happened to it. I knew it was gone, without even having to look. But of course I looked. I looked through everything I had with me. We went home and looked through everything brought to the house. I looked in my car. I called my mother and sister in law to make them look through their cars. I called the woman who runs the building where we married. I had the man at the Bed & Breakfast where we'd stayed that night look through his stuff. When I returned from my honeymoon, Carmen and I went back to the wedding place to look through the grass & bushes around the building for an hour. I called Men's Wearhouse to see if it had somehow gotten into Jared's tuxedo pockets.
All of this time.. nothing. Three months of feeling a sense of loss. I know it's just a material possession, and that it doesn't mean much in the real world, but I felt like I was somehow letting my grandmother down.
BUT. Yesterday I was walking around the back of my car. You know that space between the back seats and back windsheild of a car? Where there is always a bunch of dead bugs and no one ever looks? Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw a HUGE dead bug back there. I stopped and looked closer.. and there it was. My grandma's ring. Just like it had been there for 3 months. How did I not notice it before? How did I miss it the twenty times I looked through my car?
Doesn't matter. It finally came back to me last night. Like Nana (that's what we called her) was just holding on to it for a while so I would remember her.
But this ring is now even dearer to my heart.
