but not to worry, today I found it.
This ring belonged to my grandmother. She gave it to me a maybe three or four years ago. And last night, I lost it. Or so I thought.
Last night I was eating dinner and happened to look down at my right hand and had a strange sense that something was missing. Then I realized that my fingers were vacant and my ring was missing in action. At first I assured myself that there was no need to worry, that surely it was just on the dining room table where I had been eating or in the bathroom where I may have left it after washing my hands. To my dismay, it was not in either of those seemingly logical places. This was about the point that I really started to worry. You see, this ring isn't just any ring. It's a lucky ring. I know you must be thinking, "Yeah, sure, a lucky ring, right..." But I'm sure that if you allow me to tell you a story you may understand.
My grandmother used to be a maid in Central America. She had four children to support, so she worked hard. She's one of the hardest workers that I know. At one point she was a maid for my grandfather, well before he was my grandfather. He had a wife and a family. (I promise that there is nothing scandalous about this story, so don't start going down that road.) After a while he and his family moved back to New Mexico. He worked for the foreign services so he moved a lot. One rare, cold snowy New Mexico night he and his wife were going to the Santa Fe Opera and there was a terrible car accident. His wife died. His wife had told him some time before that if, God forbid, anything should happen to her, he should find a woman like my Nan to take care of him. So that's what he did. He went and found my Nan. And eventually he brought her and my mom, aunts, and uncle to the United States. It's a real life fairy tale, and that's the truth. Nan told me that when they moved to the United States that my gramps gave her this ring and that him marrying her and bringing her and her family to the U.S. was the absolute luckiest thing that had ever happened to her.
So you see, this isn't just any ring. It was my Nan's lucky ring. And then my lucky ring. So losing it felt not only like losing my luck, but losing a piece of my Nan, and her story. I was bathed in guilt and it broke my heart to think that I had so carelessly lost that. I rarely take that ring off. But my fingers are "in between sizes", let's say. The finger that I usually wear it on has gotten a bit fat for it, so I've been wearing it on another finger where it fits ever so slightly loose. So after turning the house upside down looking for where I may have unknowingly put it, we retraced my steps to see if it had fallen off of its own accord somewhere along the way. We went back and forth between my house and the Frontier a few times scouring the ground, left a missing item note there with the manager, combed through the truck and the parking lot, and lastly checked the trash that I had thrown into the dumpster (thanks Daniel!) earlier that afternoon. Nothing turned up. And I had absolutely no recollection of where it could possibly be. We called it a night and the girls went home. I didn't sleep very well.
The next day the most productive things I did all day were take a shower, watch Fringe, and paint my nails. I realize that these things aren't that productive, that's why I say "most productive". I was pretty unmotivated... Daniel called me after he had gotten off work. I asked him to maybe check his dresser, where I had put some lotion on my hands the day before. I waited while he went to look, my breath sucked in and my heart pounding with anticipation for his answer. Toom-toom, toom-toom, toom-toom...
He said it was there, on the dresser, right where I left it. The captive sigh of relief escaped my lungs! I asked him, "Are you being real?? No joke??" And he replied, "No!! It's here right on my finger! I have it!!" So I went right over to see for myself. And there it was, right where he told me he'd leave it. The sight of it nearly made me cry with joy and relief.
You might say, "Kristen, it's just a ring", sure, technically it is just a ring, but it's so much more than that. It's my luck, my Nan, family history, and the reminder to work hard, that when things are rough, not to worry, because they'll get better. It'll also always be a reminder that, sometimes, fairy tales do come true.
So, I put it back on the fat finger, just in case.
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