We got an interesting email the other day from the office of student affairs at Virginia Tech. The email said that someone found Ward's class ring and contacted them because they wanted to return it. The university was trying to verify if they had the right person to go with the name engraved inside the ring.It turns out that a man in Kansas found the ring in the bottom of a box while he was going through things in preparation for moving. He has no idea how it got there. The last Ward remembers, he took it off to wash his hands in a bathroom and hasn't seen it since. That was 25 years ago in Houston. The man said he has never been to Houston and has no association with Virginia Tech. So far, no one can connect any dots to understand how he ended up with it. The stranger very kindly mailed it to Ward and he got it yesterday. Ward was thrilled to have it back. Hooray for the kindness of strangers.
This story reminds of a ring I lost several years ago. My sister had a new house and I was helping her paint. I took off my rings to keep them clean and put them in my pocket. However later that day when I went to put them back on, my engagement ring was missing. I searched high and low for weeks and even got a metal detector to go through my sister's yard. My best guess was that when I took my car keys out of my pocket the ring came out, too.
Of course, there was sentimental value to the ring for me, but I could get another one if I wanted. I was more concerned about what I was going to tell Ward's grandmother. The ring had been her mother's and she very carefully said that if anything ever happened between Ward and me, the ring came back so that it would stay in the family. In the beginning, I hoped that the ring would show up somewhere. However after several months when I still hadn't found it, I started to worry about how I was going to tell his grandmother. Each time I visited, I tried to hide my hand so she wouldn't notice. I considered not telling her, but I didn't think that was the right thing to do. Just as soon as I finally had decided that I was going to tell her on our next visit, my sister called. She had found the ring! She was planting flowers and found it buried in the dirt. Boy, was I happy! That happened on Mother's Day and I'm not sure if there was significance to that, but I think there might be.
There you have it. Two lost rings, two found rings. Sometimes it does pay to be patient.
