“Jessica: take this ring as a sign of my fidelity and love. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
To all the married folk out there: what would you do if you suddenly realized that you lost your wedding ring? It’s kind of hard to answer that question because it seems so unfathomable. But… last week it became a very real situation for us!
Here’s what happened: the evening after we returned from our trip to Moab and Glenwood Springs, we started working on our laptops after putting the kids to bed. I was pretty focused on writing a blog post, when all of a sudden I heard the most distressed gasp from Jess. She was looking at her wedding ring, and as she pointed it at me, I realized why.
The diamond was gone.
GONE.
This is when the rush of thoughts and emotions came in. Where could it be? When did it fall off? HOW did it fall off? Did it happen when we were on our trip? It’s so little. How could we possibly find it? I bet our dog ate it. Will I have to go dig through his poop? It could be anywhere!
Jess and I looked at each other, took a deep breath, and got on the floor. We looked. And looked. And kept looking. No luck. But then the weirdest thing happened. We felt… okay. Granted, we were still sad that this happened. But we weren’t devastated. And here’s why.
One of the side effects of having the mindset that you’re going to sell everything to travel the world is thinking that most material possessions are “nice to haves,” but not essential. I purchased that wedding ring for Jess, so it didn’t have any historical family value. While there is some emotional attachment to the diamond, it wasn’t enough to affect us in a significant, earth-shattering way. Thankfully, we had insured the ring in case of loss, so we’d be covered for the monetary value of the ring.
We went to bed that night having searched everywhere, still with no luck. This was truly a “needle in a haystack” situation. A house-sized haystack. We knew we hadn’t lost it during our trip because Jess had done a story video when we got back where the diamond was still on the ring. We placed our insurance claim and went to bed.
Thankfully, this story has a happy ending. We FOUND IT the next morning. Our diamond in the rough! It was hiding behind the faucet in our bathroom sink.
We’d like to end this post with a Public Service Announcement. PLEASE get your wedding rings inspected for any loose settings! While we lucked out with our situation, others have not been so fortunate. We’ve come to the decision that we’re not going to take Jess’s ring on our travels, because we’ll constantly be on the move and honestly finding it in our home was hard enough!
If you’ve had any scary loss stories, feel free to share them in the comments below!
My wedding band is a half eternity band and I too lost a small diamond on there. It was more the shock of realising that it was missing more than anything!
I’m glad it was found!! Even though it’s only a material thing, it’s still nicer to have it than not to have it!
http://www.chausadventure.com
That is a scary thought! I don’t attach emotionally to many things, but I do attach them to hard work. When I lose or break something of value I always say “do you know how hard I worked to get that and how hard I have to work to replace that?!” When my husband and I bought our rings we also bought cheap rings that we could wear when adventuring and if they were to be lost we wouldn’t mind. I also recently bought myself a silicone wedding band that I like to wear when hiking.
Thanks for sharing, Norma! We’re also getting some cheap rings to wear while we’re traveling since it would feel even worse to have lost this a second time!