Man’s wedding ring travels full circle

A true story…

My parents have been married almost 30 years. So when my father lost his original wedding ring seven years ago during a weekend road trip to Montana, my mother was understandably disgruntled. But after a few months, she got over it and life for my father went back to normal. The following year on their anniversary, my mother presented him with a brand new ring that she had picked out herself.

So you can imagine her utter surprise when a week after receiving the ring, my father returned in silence from a fishing trip … without the ring. To this day, it’s still lost in the mud flats somewhere at Potholes State Park.

Needless to say, we didn’t talk much about the ring for several years after that. It had become a very sore subject with both my mom and dad. At one point, my mom sarcastically suggested my dad get a tattoo of a ring on his finger, but then remarked he’d find some way to get his finger cut off.

Finally this year at Christmas, my dad had mustered the courage to ask my mom for a third ring. Not wanting to spend a whole lot of money, my mom decided to look around in the pawnshops for an inexpensive ring. The first shop she went to was a place not far from where my parents had lived in the Spokane Valley for almost 15 years.

She stood in the pawnshop looking through rings other people had pawned over the years. The gentleman at the counter was very helpful, pulling out tray after tray of rings while making small talk with my mom. She had almost decided against the idea of buying a pawned ring for my dad – it just seemed a little cheesy and awkward.

But then something caught her eye – an unusual ring with a ‘70’s design. As she looked closer, it had a similar style to the original wedding ring my dad had lost in Montana several years ago. She picked it up. It was uncanny. My dad’s original ring was a gold band with gold nuggets pounded into the band all around, just like this ring. My mom’s heart skipped a beat.

Hesitantly, she asked the man behind the counter what he knew of the ring. He replied that he’d had it almost as long as he’d been in business … almost seven years. He also told my mom that it was a gold band, probably made in the 1970s. She had him size the ring. It was an exact match of the ring my dad lost. She turned the ring over and looked at the inside band. Just before my dad lost the ring, he had damaged the inside of the band, and they were going to have it repaired. This ring had exactly the same damage.

Somehow, the original wedding band was there in her hand after being lost in a pawnshop for almost seven years. How it made the trip back from Montana, we’ll never know.

It was hard for my mom to keep this secret from my dad until Christmas. With his wife, three daughters and twin grandsons present, my dad opened the ring on Christmas morning. He had that same twinkle in his eye that had attracted my mom to him 35 years ago in the hallways of the old University High School. He looked up and said, “Where did you find it?” We all just laughed. “We sure have a story for you!” we replied.