Digging for Silver: Gratitude in Loss and Recovery

The ring above was bought for me by my mother in 1982 as I started college in Durango, CO. I was eighteen years old and had never been away from home more than a month. I wanted to be a science writer specializing in ornithology, so Momma was happy to encourage my love of birds. I wore this ring regularly until I was twenty-five.

When I married my second husband, he opted for gold wedding bands because they were “traditional” and he didn’t want anything unique that would draw attention. I set my silver rings aside (most of my rings) including this large, conspicuous ring that is intended for the forefinger.

When I left Surfside Beach in November 2021, post-divorce, I began wearing this ring daily again. At night, I placed it on my phone stand that sat on my little dinette table in Blanche.

In July, I rushed away from a brief stay in Oklahoma. It was hot. I didn’t want to run late that morning. I was distracted as I am so often these days.

I realized a day after getting to Missouri that I couldn’t find my ring.

I had two memories of where I might have lost it:

1. wearing it to the showers and hanging it on a hook so it wouldn’t catch in my hair as I shampooed (OK or MO, I wasn’t certain);
2. having it on the phone stand and thinking, as I casually tossed the stand onto the bed before hitting the road, “My ring is on there. I’ll have to dig for it later. I really should get it now, but I’m in a hurry.”

Now, with my distractions at bay and feeling the empty space on my hand like a wound, I was in a panic. Where is it?

I tore Blanche apart. I removed the covers and pillows, lifted the mattress, pulled everything out from under the bed, checked shoes, checked the holes where the table posts go…

Nothing.

I called the park in Oklahoma; they kindly took my number should anyone turn it in.

I cried. I cursed my stupidity. I searched the campsite in case I had dropped it when I was tearing Blanche apart.

Still, nothing.

In the several weeks since, every time that I have dug around under the bed or washed the covers, I have gone through all these things again. I told no one about it because I knew I would be a broken little girl and cry.

On a brilliant, sunny day, back in Central Nebraska, I began another wash day. I pulled clothes and my suitcase out as I had done many times before. I saw my slippers and thought I’d check them again when the glint of silver caught my eye. There she was, just lying there on the floor under the bed.

I can only guess that the ring got snagged on a wheel of my suitcase or tangled in some bit of clothing I hadn’t worn and now it was set free almost forty-five days later.

Lesson Learned

What’s the point of all this? It’s just a ring. Yes, it has sentimental value, but that is not what struck me when I lost it and again when I found it.

When I thought the ring was lost for good, I asked myself many times, “How do you lose something that you have had for forty years?” For twenty-nine of those forty years, I didn’t even wear it because my spouse talked me out of white gold and insisted “matching” rings meant proof of marital bliss. I can tell you I looked at it a thousand times in those three decades and wanted to wear it. Now, this big, bulky, even gaudy ring that I treasured was just gone.

That led me to different questions: 1) How did I lose myself after twenty-six years of ownership?* 2) How did I lose my marriage after twenty-nine years? 3) Now that I am getting myself back, how do I keep her?

There isn’t enough space in one blog entry to answer these questions, but this ring, this misplacement, holds some clues.

There’s more to come—more digging under the “furniture” to find what was lost. Until then, I’ve got a bold hummingbird of turquoise and coral on my hand, and I am grateful for the lesson of the loss and subsequent recovery.

*I was twenty-six years old when we married.

Last Updated on March 23, 2023 by Lee Ellis