"Mom, come over here. I brought something for you."
I dawdled over to my daughter.
"Hold out your hand," she said thrusting a tightly closed fist toward me.
"Uh... does it wiggle?" I asked, remembering other tightly-closed-fist-presents, including those that buzzed and unwound and chased my poise clean away.
"Just hold out your hand," she insisted, grinning.
I decided to trust her. After all, not for a decade or so had either one of my children presented me with a living species. Besides, she was a mother now.
When I opened my hand, she did too. Something tiny, glittering and round landed in my palm. I stared, stunned. Then whooped.
I had despaired of ever again seeing that circle of gold with a single diamond, my gift to the Preacher on our wedding day decades earlier. He proved unable to wear a ring of any sort, so I'd adopted it for the largest finger on my right hand. There he could at least see the reminder of his commitment at the altar. I wasn't about to let him forget that.
When Amanda had asked to borrow the ring as a prop in a musical theatre production, I gave in, but with great reluctance. "I'll take good care of it, Mom," she said. But to everyone's dismay, it went missing on one of the show's final nights. Too large for her, we assumed it must have slipped off and gotten lost in the confusion of her many costume changes.
Like the woman in one of Jesus' parables, we scoured every possible hiding place, every remote possibility - for months. But unlike that woman in the Bible who lost, then found, one of her marriage coins, we never held a celebration with our neighbours. The ring, we assumed, was gone forever.
But forever ended several years later, the day our son-in-law, breaking down empty boxes in his garage, lifted one and heard something small roll from one side to the other. Curious, he peered inside. In the dim light of the garage, something glittered. He reached in to pluck it up, amazed to find his father-in-law's lost wedding ring. I'm wearing it as I click.
Every so often when I look at our rings, I think of those words, spoken so earnestly by two naïve, selfish youth - strangers to us now - almost thirty-five years ago. "For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer. In sickness and in health, till death do us part."
Like most partners of our vintage, we've had better, worse, richer, poorer, sickness and health - all but death, though we both gave fleeting consideration to murder a few times. With God's patience, we've grown up together, and with God's help, we've honoured our vows. Like the ring itself, they seem lost sometimes, but they keep showing up, gleaming in dark places when, without a careful second look, it would have been just as easy to toss them. I'm so glad we haven't.
