It happened so fast. I was doing the dishes, the garbage disposal was rumbling and then…clink!
I looked down in time to see a glint of gold vanish down the drain. My opal ring! I heard a sickening crunch. Quickly, I turned off the disposal. Please let it be okay. My ring couldn’t be damaged, not again.
Many years earlier, the opal had cracked and I’d brought it to a jeweler. “The stone has to be replaced,” he told me. “Fortunately, the setting is fine—it’s truly unique,” he went on, pointing out the flowers intricately carved on the gold band. “They don’t design rings like this anymore.” Then he smiled and said, “Don’t worry; it’ll be good as new.”
Opal is my birthstone—October—and the ring was a twentieth birthday gift from my parents. Along with my engagement and wedding rings, it was my most treasured piece of jewelry.
The jeweler did a wonderful job. He replaced the opal and the ring looked brand new. “Never leave it on when putting your hands in warm, soapy water,” he cautioned. “That’s what may have caused the stone to crack in the first place.”
For years I’d been so careful. I even mounted a cute heart-shaped ring holder on the wall by the sink to hang my ring on.
But today, the vibrations from the disposal had shaken the ring from the holder. Fighting back tears, I fished out a tiny lump of gold. My ring was mangled beyond recognition.
I drove to the kind jeweler who had fixed it before. But his store was gone. He’d clearly been out of business for some time. My heart sank. Without him, how could my ring ever be fixed?
I took it to a jeweler I knew from church. He examined the lump and shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know where to start. But I’ll have my gemologist take a look at it.”
He went to the back room. I looked sadly at the place on my finger where the ring had always been. Where it would never be again.
Moments later the gemologist came out. The same voice, the same smile, the same jeweler who’d fixed my ring years ago! “I remember this ring very well, because the setting was so unique,” he said. “I can recreate it from memory.”
