grieving with guinever

I was tired and crawled into bed. The light was still on and my eyes stopped short on my ring finger. The diamond was gone. And not just the diamond, but the whole top was missing, prongs and all.

I had been wearing this thing for over 33 years, gotten the prongs rebuilt a few times and even had the whole head replaced less than 2 years ago. The jeweler had told me it wouldn’t be as strong as the original ring. But 2 years? I had gotten it inspected since then. How does the whole top of a ring just fall off?

I went to the living room and told my husband and 19 year old son not to vacuum or take out the trash because the diamond was missing off my ring.

The 19 year old said, “Mom, do we ever vacuum?”

Seriously, though, I thought, what was the last thing I did? I opened up the dishwasher because I had just filled it. I could see a plastic baby spoon on the bottom of the dishwasher. I thoughtlessly reached for it and burnt my middle finger on the heating element. Thankfully, I keep a small aloe plant by the sink for such a time as this.

The next day, one of my coworkers said, “I hope you find it, not just because of the cost, but because it’s sentimental and irreplaceable.”

I started to cry. I had already been thinking that this was just another loss. Just another thing that doesn’t even really matter in the grand scheme of life. Temporal and earthly. My ring is not a person, it’s not eternal. It doesn’t even matter.

I was upset about losing the diamond, but thought “Whatever. What next?”

I had been retracing my steps in my mind and decided I really needed to go through the kitchen garbage because cleaning the dishes was the very last thing I had done before going to bed. You know how the sink drain catches all the food and you bang it on the side of the trash to empty it? I thought maybe that vigorous motion could have caused the top of my ring to go flying.

When I got home, I lifted the trash bag out of the garbage can and placed it onto the kitchen counter and carefully took out each thing.

When I got down to the bottom where the potato peels were and the little bits of food gunk that had been caught in the drain while washing dishes, I saw it.

There it was mixed in with last night’s dinner scraps.

I couldn’t even believe it. What are the chances that this tiny diamond could be found in the bottom of the trash?

I instantly felt loved and cared for by God. It almost felt like I lost my ring just so God could show Himself in the details.

How much was this going to cost to fix? Property taxes are due in a couple weeks and we’re saving everything to go toward that hefty bill. I decided to wait to get a couple estimates.

But then that friend from work who told me she really hopes I find the dismond, told me her son-in-law who is a master “bench’ jeweler offered to fix it for free. What?!?!

 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?

Matthew 6:26

Again, I’m feeling loved and cared for by God and grateful that I don’t need to write off my diamond as just another loss.