Lost – A Long Golden History

If you thought 2006 might give us a break from columns about my never-ending searches for lost objects, you thought wrong.

Admittedly, one of my resolutions was to close the lost and found department and offer my readers the sense that they too can aspire to total control of their lives. I’d hoped that a new year might give me a better chance at keeping possessions where they belong but, alas, it is not to be.

Lost: one pretty little diamond on a long gold chain. And with a long golden history.

My mother-in-law gave it to me after Dave and I were married. We had neither the money nor the desire to announce our engagement with a diamond ring. She thought a diamond formalized an engagement..

It was a rhetorical debate, anyhow. Mother S. didn’t think the marriage would last.

So when we made it through the second year, she presented me with a small but genuine diamond set in white gold and hanging from a short white gold chain.

I was touched yet disappointed. I never wore white gold or silver, and I hated short necklaces. The pendant lay unworn in a drawer for years, except for when I knew Mother was coming and might notice.

When a friend in the office where I worked got divorced, she had her former engagement diamond reset as a pendant on a long gold chain. It hung gracefully over anything she wore it with – sweaters, blouses, sweatshirts. I loved it, and quickly decided that my little stone would also look nice swinging from a slender chain and hanging, um, right about here.

And it did. I wore it day and sometimes nights, and it survived until my first grandbaby, fretting with a cold, got his little arm inside it and pulled too hard. The chain was very light (the cost factor was still with us) but the baby was strong, and the chain popped in several places.

Dave bought me a new, stronger chain and I wore it for about a year. The tiny gem looked perfect with just about everything.

I don’t know how many times that necklace had stuck to a sweater and was pulled up over my head. But always before, it had fallen or somehow slipped off in full sight.

One exception was when I took it off in the motor home and left it on top the fridge. It somehow fell to the floor and was swept out with some cracker crumbs.

We were a quarter mile from the state park entrance when I missed it. Went back and began to search, and somehow – by a glint of light, perhaps? – spotted it among brown leaves piled in a cold autumn campfire.

Then late last summer, it inexplicably disappeared, diamond and all.

There’s a place on my end of the bathroom counter where I sometimes lay it at night, and that was the first place I looked. From there to the small cluttered drawer below the counter – I must have emptied it a dozen times. If you’ve ever lost something, I’ll bet you’ve done the same thing. You just KNOW it will suddenly reappear, leaving you shaking your head in disbelief.

Don’t I wish. I crept along the baseboard, praying that it had dropped into the slot where carpet meets cabinets. No luck. Hopes soared when Dave said he thought he might have heard something rattle in the vacuum cleaner when he helped with cleaning.

At last! A strong clue. I cut the sweeper bag open, ran every clump of dust through my fingers – to no avail.

Cleaned off the clothes shelf, thinking the chain had caught on a sweater. Ran my fingers under the edge of the mattress, turned pocketbooks upside down and garment pockets inside out, even checked the little lamp where I used to hang it in the boat. Actually cleaned some bookshelves and those cluttery baskets people like me should not be allowed to have.

Right about here, I bet you’re thinking I’ll say it turned up and all is well. Unfortunately, I can’t.

Dave asked me if I wouldn’t like to have a new one for my birthday or Christmas. Nice idea, honey, but it’s not the same. The very history of the chain and diamond makes it irreplaceable. I miss it so much….

Our 50th anniversary is in March, however. Maybe if we don’t find it before then?

That’s one way to start a new year.

Or a new history.