Uncategorized Category | Page 197 of 607 | The Ring Finders

I was on a metal detecting trip at a popular resort at a natural lake in Idaho. Tourists come from all over to enjoy the spectacular views of the Saw Tooth Mountains, and to play in the lake. In water about four feet deep, I retrieved a ring. It turned out to be a high school class ring. With many of the rings I find, I have little chance of finding the owner, but class rings are different. This ring had the name of the high school, the year of graduation, and the last name of the owner. I called the high school and left my name and phone number with a counselor there. She contacted the student, and a few days later I got a call from Marianne! She gave me her address and I sent the ring. Now it’s back on her finger, where it belongs.

Maria was on vacation, hiking through the Narrows in Zion National Park. About knee deep in the cold Virgin River, her grandmother’s family heirloom wedding ring slipped off Maria’s finger and disappeared into the water. Maria, together with friends and strangers, searched for the ring, but couldn’t find it. After she returned home to Connecticut, she found me on TheRingFinders.com. While she contacted the National Park Service for permission for me to find her ring, I packed my metal detectors into a backpack. I left home before 3:00 am, drove 4 hours to Zion, and hiked for an hour through the Virgin river, through water that got as deep as my chest, so I had to hold my backpack over my head to keep it dry. Thanks to Maria’s detailed instructions, I found the location where the ring was lost. I selected the best metal detector for that terrain and started searching. It was literally about 30 seconds into the search when I got a beep, and there was her ring! They hadn’t found it earlier because it was nestled between two rocks, but rocks won’t hide gold from a metal detector. It took another one-hour to hike back through river, and another four hours to drive back home. I sent Maria a video of me sealing her precious ring into a box and attaching a UPS label. Her ring is now back on her finger.

A visit to the family’s dairy farm near Rubicon, Wisconsin last May, resulted in the loss of an heirloom wedding ring. The ring was passed down to Dana Griesmer from her great grandmother.

Dana and her husband, Andrew, along with their 5 children were spending time together with family and friends. During the visit Dana’s 3-year-old daughter noticed the pretty ring on her mother’s finger. To her delight, Dana let her hold the ring in her hand. Excited about the special prize and in a moment of distraction the enthusiastic little girl ran out into the yard to show the ring to her siblings and cousins. That’s when the ring was allegedly dropped. At least, this was the account provided by the saddened 3-year-old. A search at the time failed to locate the heirloom.

Dana consoled herself with the view that the ring was “just an object.” She determined not to allow its loss to rob her of the peace and joy that hallmarked her and her family’s lives. As the months rolled by, however, the ring often came to Dana’s mind evoking bittersweet memories.

I met the Griesmer family one Sunday while attending church and learned Andrew was interested in metal detecting. He had tried to locate Dana’s ring using a very basic metal detector but an abundance of metallic debris in the area made it impossible to decipher the ring. And just how much stock does one put into a 3-year old’s account? The ring could have dropped anywhere.

Andrew shared the story about Dana’s ring with me. A few weeks later, with state-of-the-art metal detecting equipment in hand, we arranged to meet at the farm and scan the area where the ring had allegedly dropped. If the ring was indeed in that area, my hope was that Andrew might locate it with his newly acquired equipment. As it turned out, just a short time into the search, a signal consistent with a ring registered on my detector. Investigating further, the precious heirloom appeared in the sod where it had fallen several months before and right where the 3-year-old reported having lost it.

A precious reunion ensued. The smiles tell the rest of the story.

I so much appreciated Dana’s perspective. Without doubt, her great grandmother’s ring was a special, sentimental object; Dana could have let its loss and her disappointment control her. Instead, she chose to savor her great grandmother’s memory and not allow the lost ring to extinguish her joy and peace. Hers is a rare response these days, evidence of maturity and of life priorities arranged in appropriate order. This is because Dana’s bigger-than-life outlook is aligned with her eternal perspective, one that made the recovery of the ring a bonus, like icing on the cake of life. As the Bible urges, Dana’s real ‘treasures’ lay elsewhere,

“But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal;” Matthew 6:20

So glad, Dana, to have had a part in your ‘icing-on-the-cake’ experience! Enjoy!