Some Days Are Diamonds
The supermarket was crowded. It was a weekend morning, a time I usually avoid. The day ahead was filled with a school event, a Boy Scout meeting, AND a birthday party. I woke up that morning to an email that I was in charge of the snack for the school event. And so my husband and I downed our coffee while rushing our two kids out the door to run to the supermarket on the way to the first event of the day. While we were there, we might as well do our shopping for the coming week. I had no idea that it would become a day filled with diamonds.
Neither kid was behaving. My husband and I were bickering a little over our grocery budget, or lack of it. We decided to split up in the supermarket, because I couldn’t concentrate on my list and per unit prices with a whiny two-year-old. He took the baby and I took the kindergartener.
Some Days Are Stones
I was throwing packages of store-brand cheese sticks into my cart when I felt a minuscule tug on my finger. I didn’t think much of it. But as I reached for a tub of cream cheese, I saw that the diamond from my 16-year-old engagement ring was GONE. There was just an empty ring setting, direly in need of a cleaning.
When my husband proposed 16 years ago, on my birthday as we sat on a New York city stoop, I actually panicked and said, “No.” I took an entire week to think about my answer. We had been living together for almost seven years at that point. We owned an apartment together. Yet, his proposal had surprised me. We were both children of messy divorces and had no desire to repeat our parent’s mistakes. We weren’t planning on having kids ourselves anytime soon and we certainly didn’t have money for a wedding. The enormity of the commitment to marriage scared me. I feel guilty now, knowing how my unexpected answer hurt him. He had to call both sets of parents that night and tell them that, no, the proposal didn’t go as planned.
And while I’m regretful that the poor man had to suffer for a week with my indecision, I’m kind of glad I took that week. It came down to a lot of imagining about the two different directions my future could take. And I didn’t like the future without him in it. I even factored into the equation that his family had become my family and I didn’t want to lose them either.
Diamond, Diamond, Who’s Got the Diamond?
But back to the ring. As I mentioned, we had no money when he proposed. Yet he gave me the most perfect (and kind of large) diamond ring. I found out later that his mom had given him her engagement ring from her marriage with his father and that, not wanting to give me a diamond from a failed marriage, he took it to a pawn shop. He was able to exchange it for a different ring. And even though he is chronically style-challenged, he picked the perfect one.
I’d barely taken it off for the past 16 years. Once I decided to marry, the ring became part of my anatomy. And now, after surviving years of cleaning, yard work, baby birthing, and child tending, the diamond had somehow popped out in the middle of a crowded bargain supermarket.
Of course, I frantically searched the immediate area around me, including the floor. But who knew how long it had been missing? This was a gigantic super-store, full of activity. I quickly realized that the odds of finding it were next to nothing.
I would have expected myself to panic in this moment. And while I did have a terrible feeling gnawing at my stomach, I was surprisingly calm. I walked over to my husband, in the next aisle starring at pasta sauces, and said, “Something terrible just happened and you’ll never believe it.” I showed him my hand.
New Perspectives
My seven-year-old, who has a flair for drama, immediately wailed as if I had told him his best friend died. We all started running around the store looking up and down the aisles. The-two-year-old squealed in delight at this shopping cart racing game.
After a while, my husband and I just looked at each other and shrugged. It was gone. And yet, I wasn’t devastated. We had so many wonderful things going for us in our busy lives. These two wonderful (yet sometimes infuriating) souls that call us Mama and Daddy. A huge crowd of close friends that we recently moved closer to. A new house that, although in dire need of renovation, we looked forward to fixing up. Relative success in our careers. But mostly, each other.
I never thought he’d be the man I’d marry. Even after living together for seven years prior to his proposal! He wasn’t my “type.” We were polar opposites in personality and had some serious disagreements on religous and political issues. Yet, we were an amazing team. We’d built a fairly comfortable life together out of nothing. After a lot of struggles to start a family, we now had both a son and daughter that we adored. I’d say our sex life was rather good as of late but that would embarrass my very-private husband. (I told you, we are polar opposites.) So I won’t say that.
I had just settled on the fact that my diamond was gone forever, destined to be swept up by a supermarket employee, and we probably wouldn’t buy another one anytime soon. After all, we had a house to renovate. I moved on to shopping for that night’s dinner. Would hot dogs be a horrible choice after such a busy day?
And then my husband walked up to me and showed me the diamond. He’d found it on the floor, a few aisles over. It wasn’t even laying diamond-shiny side up. I don’t know how he found it. If I had come across something like that in the supermarket, I would have assumed it was something that fell out of a toddler’s princess crown, something totally worthless.
But what’s amazing, is that something that looks like it has no worth might actually be the most valuable thing you’ll find all day. Or in seven years.
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