Luck - If Not Love - Endures
People in love are pack rats! They’ll save the darndest things, from an old cookie wrapper to a lucky token. Long after the love has faded, the bumblebee ring is still going strong. Here are some of the things you’re saving …
Jackie: “I was set up with a friend of a co-worker. The four of us went to play miniature golf and Dick and I hit it off right away. The very last hole was a roulette wheel. If you got your ball in a certain hole, you won a token good for a free game of golf. On the token it said, ‘Lucky You.’ The token instantly became my good luck charm. A year later, Dick and I were married and I held the token in a hanky at the altar. He was very moved. Almost nine yeas later we divorced and he married the co-worker who had introduced us. Again, I had the lucky token with me for the divorce. It is three years later and I still have it.”
Maureen: “Jim and I dated for two years in college. We broke up senior year and resumed our relationship long distance the summer after graduation. Occasionally, we would meet at another couple’s house for the weekend. During one visit, Jim and his friend spent the afternoon at the arcade, while my friend and I shopped. When we picked the guys up, they were bearing gifts, 26 plastic bumblebee rings. I put one of the rings on my rear view mirror to help cheer up those long drives. Jim and I are no longer together, but years late, I’m still finding bumblebee rings among my things. I still keep one on my rear view mirror. It goes with me always.”
Denise: “On May 19, 1993, my husband was in the back yard working in his garden. He came into the house with a rose and said, ‘This is for you.’ I still have the rose in a vase, because an hour later, he died of a heart attack, with no warning. I have the memories of our 47 years together and the rose.”
Renee: “After our wedding ceremony, we stopped at our neighborhood bar. As we walked in, the waitress threw rice at us. Then she swept it up and put it in a mayonnaise jar, which I still have almost 36 years later. I tell my family when I die, I want that rice to be buried with me.”
Melissa: “When I was 15, I found my soul mate. I was working part time in a nursing home where he visited his father. The first time I saw him, I was eating a package of Lorna Doone butter cookies which I shared with him. Over the years, we lost touch, the biggest mistake of my life. I have kept that empty wrapper, now old and wrinkly and devoid of all buttery crumbs, for all these years. It sits in my purse, a reminder every day of the one that got away.”
Candy: “I have 53 letters from ‘Army Flight Officer Bill,’ postmarked Sept. 1, 1943 to Feb. 20, 1945. We had dated when he was stationed nearby. Alas, I was Midwest and he was West Coast and it was wartime and I was just 18 years old. A few months after the death of my husband of more than 40 years, while I was sorting through papers, pictures and mementos, I discovered the letters. I sat down and read them and for a few short hours, I was 17 and not 70.”
Lana: “When my husband and I were looking at engagement and wedding rings, I was just 18 and had no idea what I wanted. We selected a set that was like my mother’s. By our 10th anniversary, when my husband asked what I would like as a gift, I said a new wedding ring. We went to a jeweler and looked at rings, but I couldn’t find one I really liked. So, the jeweler and my husband and I designed a new setting for my stones and the birthstones of our two children. I love my ‘family’ ring. Sometimes I cry when I tell people about it.”