I lost my wedding ring last Sunday. Actually, Deb lost it. We were at our cabin getting ready to leave, and both of us are doing our vairous duties, like sweeping, cleaning, and carrying things to the car. The car was jammed with a large bag of disposables, a large bag of recyclcables, dirty clothes, cooler, and, as always, lots of books, some of them read. So we are about 20 mintues out and I notice I dont have my wedding ring on. Now my procedure is to put my watch, ring(s), phone, pen, and keys on the long counter in the kitchen ready to put in my pocket or go in the car. Deb picked up my stuff and put these several items in the car, a nice thing that she often does. This time, unfortunately, there was no ring. The backdrop of the ring, by the way, is that I got a new ring about 6 years ago when Deb’s mother took us to Aruba. The ring cost something like $1500, which I am a bit embarrassed to admit. So it was no small thing. Additionally, I had just sold my original wedding ring to a jeweler because of the currently high value of gold. No ring. What do we do. We turn around. We get back the cabin. No ring in the cabin. No ring in the yard. No ring in the driveway. And we are back in the car. For a few minutes I was mad (I wish you would leave my s**t alone), but that passed, and within about an hour I was good with the loss. I was good with the loss means that I had been sad and was no longer sad. I teach my patients this all the time: underlying anger is always sadness; underlying sadness is always a loss; underlying a loss is always a love. I loved my ring. And now it was gone. I began to think of people who spend 10x the $1500 or 100x the $1500, and I smiled at myself. And felt pretty good. Got home and immediately went to a social obligation, where by chance I talked to my friend Chris about having lost the ring and no longer feeling bad (sad) about it. It was a good feeling. That was the end of it…I thought.
Then I came home, and Deb said, “Look at the sidewalk next to the garage.” I saw my ring. She had found it (and put it back where she had found it so I could “find” it.
My ring was back. That was nice, but oddly, it didnt mean as much to me as it had before even though I really love my (sapphire) ring. It felt like the losing was a very different and important experience compared to the finding.