I wrote a little story on Facebook a few days ago and it really seems to have touched many people. Here is a link to my page so you can see the original post and the nearly 150 comments, some of them incredibly moving lost and found stories my FB friends wrote. Feel free to comment here or there with your stories.
This thin gold band is engraved '20. AW. That's 1920 and my grandfather's initials. His name was Alfred Weis. He, along with my grandmother Mathilda and my father Rudy, escaped Nazi Germany in 1937. I never met my Opa, Alfred. He died in 1962, a year before I was born. When my father died in 1996 I found several gold wedding bands in his possessions. Opa's was the one that fit me best.
Larry placed it on my finger when we got married in 2010.
In the winter my fingers shrink a bit and a few months ago I lost the ring. Actually, two rings. I also lost the fancy filigree rose gold band you can see in the picture. too. I was heartbroken. The heartbreak that you don’t want to investigate too deeply because it will hurt so much. I left the heartbreak on the surface, not allowing myself to fall into self-recriminations, blame, stupidity. People lose things, I told myself. It happens all the time.
But I knew it really couldn’t happen. Because it just couldn’t happen to me. Not with this thin gold band.
We borrowed a friend's metal detector and canvassed the neighborhood as I thought maybe they slipped off my fingers while walking the dogs. Larry and I took turns, slowly waving the detector over the earth, back and forth, like two old folks on the beach searching for treasure. We found bottle caps, wires, and corroded metal pieces. No treasures.
And then there was this Saturday. Such a good day.
I pulled a white hoody out of the closet to wear in the rain, but, like all things white in my possession, it was stained with something yellow, probably turmeric. So I popped it into the washing machine and found something else to wear. Later, when I went to move the laundry to the dryer, I heard clinking. The filigree rose gold band was resting in the very back of the machine. Gleaming. That one comes from Larry's side of the family. We don’t know its exact origin story except maybe it belonged to a great-aunt or cousin. No further history.
My hopes were high and I searched for my Opa's ring in the washer but found nothing. I got on my hands and knees in my closet thinking it must have fallen out of the hoody’s pockets and must be on the floor. Nothing.
Still, I was hopeful. If I found one ring, I would certainly find the other.
And there it was. In the dryer, sitting on the lint catcher, staring at me when I opened the machine. It must have nestled itself in the folds of other clothes, falling out as it tumbled.
I know this is a long story but there is a moral to it. Somehow things just are never really lost. The weight of this small gold band far outweighs its physical heft. A 103-year-old ring that went from Landshtul, Germany to Philadelphia to NYC to Baltimore just can't ever really be lost. I feel like the luckiest girl.
Please tell me your story of lost and found.
Love,
Susan