In mid-January, I had a milestone birthday. My Liege and I celebrated by flying to Cuba for two weeks. I would say I’m gonna blog about the trip, but we know how well I did with China (2012) and Australia (2013)….
A couple of days before we left for Cuba, he surprised me with a beautiful three-diamond necklace in a gold setting. Stunning. I love it. Adjustable chain, so it can be worn short or long.
I thought, if only I hadn’t lost my tiny diamond stud earrings–or one of them–last summer, they would go perfectly with my new diamond necklace (except the earrings, a gift for my university graduation decades ago, are a lot smaller).
Too bad, so sad, I had lost one of my earrings. I cursed my neglectfulness and went on with packing for our trip.
We’ve been back for a week and I’ve been digging myself out from under a ton of laundry while catching up on biz-of-writing stuff. Something kept clunking in the washer. After about four loads (and a few half-hearted attempts to find out what was clunking), I did a super-sweep of the washing machine. You’ll never guess what I found. The tiny diamond solitaire stud earring I lost last summer! Looking so sparkly and new!
Just this morning I was wondering WHERE it had gone. Under the dresser? No, I checked. In the return air thingie in the floor? No, I checked that, too, before we left for Cuba. When we returned, I emptied my jewelry box and checked every square inch (and the rectangles). I began to realize I might never see my university graduation earrings again. Le sigh.
After finding it–IN THE WASHER???–I announced my discovery to my husband, then ran upstairs and found the match. The match doesn’t look anywhere near as sparkly. I would put it in the washer, but it might get lost in one of the holes the water swishes around in.
I can not believe I found my diamond stud earring!
But I guess I should not be surprised.
My husband and I will have been married thirty years this coming August. In 1984, he gave me a diamond engagement ring comprised of two tiny diamonds and a larger one in the middle. It’s a very delicate ring–thin band, simple setting. In fact, it’s darn near wore out. The band part is very narrow and has worn away so much over the years that it’s about to wear through (even though I did get it repaired once already). Also, the band part is…bent (I got my hand stuck on something in the washer one year). Unless we’re traveling, I wear a simple 14k gold wedding band with my engagement ring, no diamonds or other stones on the wedding band at all. I wear them opposite from how you’re supposed to. Instead of wedding band THEN engagement ring, I wear the engagement ring first. I have to, because it’s so worn out that last summer, when it was in its traditional position, it slipped off my finger into a bag of movie theatre popcorn just because my fingers were…slightly butter-drenched. Sheesh.
Anyway, after about seven years of being married, we were in the midst of raising babies and toddlers, and I guess I hadn’t kept up with the professional ring cleaning like I should have. So one day I’m doing laundry (a common theme in my life), and as my hand came up out of the washer, I realized the middle stone from my engagement ring was missing!! Agh!! My Liege and I scoured the house, but the diamond could not be found. He said he’d buy me a new diamond. I didn’t WANT a new diamond! I wanted the diamond he gave me when he proposed. I was so incredibly upset.
I went to bed with a heavy heart.
The next morning, I got up and picked up the cat’s water dish (which sits on the portable dishwasher so the dogs we’ve had over the years won’t steal the cat food) to refresh the water…when I noticed something sparkly in the bottom of the cat’s clear water bowl.
It was the diamond from my engagement ring!
I kid you not.
I can not lose diamonds. They always find their way back to me, it seems.
Or maybe it’s what they represent that I can’t lose. A young love that I never expected, when I met him, to endure for thirty married years (and seven years of dating before that). When I moved hundreds of miles away to attend university only four months after we met, I thought, that’s it, one of us will meet someone else and move on.
But we never did.
I feel blessed.
