The Lost Diamond

I lost a diamond.

It was a tiny diamond, one of 26 that formed the shape of a flower on a replica of my Grandmother's wedding ring. The original ring was taken from a hotel room we stayed in during an overseas Defence posting.

Married between the World Wars, Gran's ring was made of silver and marcasites. It was not worth much, but fit flat to my hand, never got in the way, and I loved it.

A replica ring was made from white gold and diamonds—26 tiny little diamonds— but it looked more like an aeroplane propeller than a flower, a massive aeroplane propeller! My husband was so thrilled to be able to replace my treasured ring. I accepted it gratefully and thought it would grow on me.

(Well, it didn't need to grow.  It was uncomfortably large for my stubby little hobbit hands.) 

When a diamond went missing from one of the petals (or blades, depending on how you looked at it), I found my excuse not to wear it. Years passed with posting moves in between. The ring lay in the drawer, imperfect and rejected. 

Opening the jewellery drawer one morning, the ring looked out at me. My eye always went first to the gap from which the tiny diamond had fallen—I always looked to the imperfection—but that morning, my perspective transformed. It was as though the 25 remaining diamonds screamed from their settings:

We are still here, all of us in our place trying really hard to shine brilliantly, but you don't see us!

I took the ring from the drawer and put it on my finger. The remaining 25 diamonds were right. Why should one tiny imperfection prevent the rest of these beautiful gems from finding light and shining for the world to enjoy? The ring was still uncomfortable to wear, but I made times where it could shine.

Another posting and I am emptying drawers. From a ‘precious things’ drawer, a drawer that had been emptied before, a tiny glimmer picked up the light. In the back corner was the lost diamond! I put it in a teeny snap-lock bag (military wives use and re-use a lot of snap-lock bags!) and labelled it, ‘The Lost Diamond’. 

Did I have it replaced into the propeller petal? Sadly, no. Two months earlier, the propeller had been remodelled into an eternity ring—perfect and comfortable to wear. The lost diamond remains in its little snap-lock, a reminder to look beyond imperfection to find what shines.

In 2020 we find ourselves posted to a new location. The lost diamond is still shining!