The Lost Ring

Happy Easter to all.  For some of you this is a very important religious holiday.  For others it is all about the Easter Bunny.  Whatever is important to you, I wish you a meaningful day.

This weekend was meaningful to me in a way I didn't expect.  On Good Friday we were busy.  We went to several grocery stores to pick up items for our family brunch.  We usually go out to eat with my dad on Fridays, so we took him on our shopping trip.  We didn't go to our usual places, but decided to try Kentucky Fried Chicken because basically it was the only game in town.  Well, not really, but it was convenient.  It wasn't a complete success for dad, but my husband and I liked it for a change. 

When we arrived home with the groceries, we put them away and then my husband went outside to split some logs.  He was outside for several hours.  That evening as we were sitting watching TV, my husband noticed he was missing his wedding ring.

He has been wearing this ring since 8/24/68.

I couldn't believe it.  Some days we don't leave the house, but that day we were in several places.  It was almost dark when he discovered it, so there was no looking around the yard.  I did look in the car and on the garage floor, but nothing showed up.  The next morning, we didn't have time to look.  We were having brunch with our daughters, their families and my daughter's mother and father in law.  Again after we arrived home, my husband went outside to work a little.  He barely looked for the ring because it could have been in the trash bag at KFC, or it could have been in the grocery store. 

I went about my business.  At some point in the afternoon, I went out to feed the birds and retrieve the camera card from the trail camera.  As I was walking in the house, Mike was raking around the bushes near the house.  He held up his hand and there was his ring on the second finger of his left hand.  He quietly said "I found it".  That's his personality.  I would have jumped up and down and ran to show him.  He figured I would notice eventually. 

He had remembered loading the wheelbarrow with debris.  Some of the big pieces were put in the burning barrel, but the excess got dumped at the edge of hill going down to the marsh.  To avoid erosion, we put excess debris and leaves on the hill.

This is the pile of leaves and small branches that get dumped on the hill.

He looked in the burning barrel but didn't see the ring.  Then he pushed the wheelbarrow to the the dumping spot.   He looked down and low and behold.  THE RING!  He couldn't believe his eyes, and I couldn't believe he found it. 

While cleaning up after splitting wood, he reached into his pocket to get out his knife.  Since his phone was on his belt, getting into the pocket was a tight squeeze.  This may have caused the ring to slip off and fall off without him noticing.   Then later while raking up the debris, the ring ended up in the wheelbarrow and dumped on the hill.  Hopefully that will never happen again.  He lost another ring his mom bought him in Green Lake five or six years ago.  That ring was never found, we thought this one was gone forever as well.

On a superficial note, a second miracle occurred for us yesterday.  We were born and raised in Wisconsin so it is logical that we are Wisconsin Badger sport fans.  Last night, Wisconsin beat undefeated Kentucky in the semifinal NCAA Men's Basketball game allowing them to play Duke for the National Championship.  It was a good day.