Many years ago, I lost my wedding ring during a day of scuba diving. I think what happened was I wore gloves — typically a no-no for diving — although in my case, I use them for added warmth. OK, call me a baby, but I get cold easily — even in warm Caribbean seas. I’m not a jewelry person, so I never really wanted an engagement or wedding ring, but since Joel wanted wedding rings, I compromised. I got the smallest, thinnest wedding ring I could find and had worn it for 11 years.
A Lost Wedding Ring
At some point, after the dive, I realized that I lost my wedding ring. After searching my gloves and areas of the boat, it appeared to be gone forever. I was surprised by how unconcerned I was with losing the ring and realized it was just more of the lifestyle downshifting we had done. I found that I was not really attached to “things” anymore. I felt okay about things coming and going in my life, without feeling like I HAD to have them. Don’t get me wrong, I was disappointed at first, but it was easy to just let it go and accept that it was lost.
A Slow Search
To be honest, I was also disappointed that I’d have to find another ring. I hate shopping. Add that to my dislike of jewelry and you’ve got a challenging situation when it comes to replacing a wedding ring. I decided that I’d let the right ring come to me — that I’d put no effort into looking for a new one. That really felt like the right approach to me and I spent the next year without a wedding ring — sometimes looking at rings online or in catalogs (getting me to go to shopping in a store for a ring would be like pulling teeth!). Joel and I figured we’d renew our wedding vows when we found a new ring. In fact, we had already considered lining up our friend, Tony, who got his ordainment online — especially since he already proved himself to be up to the task after marrying two other friends of ours.
Life Full Of Surprises
Last week, Joel and I went snorkeling from Wells Bay, the one rocky beach on the whole tiny island in our newly adopted, third world country home. We had gone there to escape from our stressed-out, over-scheduled lives. To be honest, we went to heal our bodies and minds from the more, better, faster culture. It was a beautiful day and we saw plenty of excellent fish, sea turtles, eels and coral. On our way back to shore, Joel swam over to me — I watched while he held out a ring. As we swam closer, I was shocked to see that he had my wedding ring! It was amazing.
Joel explained that the gloves he was wearing were full of sand. As he worked the sand out of his glove, he felt a ring. Thinking it was his ring that had come off, he carefully worked it out — but realized he already had a ring on his finger. That’s when he knew it was my lost wedding ring. Joel actually had my gloves on. It’s weird that after searching through the gloves — and after wearing them a couple of times more — the ring never appeared. Yet on this day in Saba, a year after the ring was lost — it was found again. And that it was found by Joel, who swam over to present it to me, felt like an underwater renewal of vows.
Lessons Learned
If there is any moral to the story, it would be this: trust that the right thing will come to you. Life doesn’t have to be all about working hard to get what you want. Just letting it happen in its own way can save stress, time & energy.
If you love something let it go free. If it doesn’t come back, you never had it. If it comes back, love it forever.
–Doug Horton
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