Reunion

It’s October 25th, 2018.

How do you write about a bona fide miracle?

As readers of the blog know, I lost my wedding ring in the ocean at Juanillo Beach a couple weeks ago. If you haven’t read about that, you should, to appreciate this story. Go on, I’ll wait.

As I said, my wife and I had plans to melt her ring down, use some of the metal in a new one for me, reforge our wedding bands.

Well, two days ago my wife’s having a bath, and I notice her ring is off, sitting on the shelf behind/over the toilet. I think to myself that I should move it, but then I figure, eh, when she gets out of the tub she’ll get it.

Later in the day, my eight year old daughter Willow’s also having a bath, as we’re getting ready to take her and her siblings to a bowling birthday party for a girl in her class.

She emerges in a towel, her eyes red from crying.

“What’s the matter?” we both exclaim.

It seems that she put her clothes on the shelf behind the toilet, and after her bath, picked them up.

She heard a clink.

Mom’s ring had gone right down the toilet.

Willow is something of a problem solver. She doesn’t typically panic. She’s good that way.

So she grabs the plunger….

Well, you can guess what happened at this point.

My wife just laughed. We both consoled her. It was too ridiculous a coincidence, and we didn’t want her upset. We had an hour before the party. Sandra ran to Sears to buy a wet/dry vac, and I called a plumber.

The plumber didn’t have good news, when he found out we were on the second floor.

“Well, a plunger doesn’t just suck, it first pushes, so she probably pushed it further down the pipe. And if you’re on the second floor…”

“Yeah, I know,” I say.

“We can come and take a look, snake a camera down the drain, see if we can see it, give you an estimate, if it’s even possible.”

“OK,” I say, make the appointment, and hang up. “Nobody use the toilet. Plumber’s coming in two hours.”

Looks like I’m not going bowling.

“It’s OK, honey,” I tell Willow. “The ring’s just metal. What’s important is the love….and the story.”

Sandra returns breathless with the wet/dry vac. She got it for thirty five dollars with a coupon she had. She’s wanted one for a while anyway (she’s the handy one in the family). No big deal.

I’m getting the kids dressed, when I realize we need wrapping paper, and tape, and a birthday card. I hear her turn on the vac as I’m putting on my shoes. I don’t hear the telltale rattle of the ring going up the hose. Oh well.

I go to Rite-Aid, buy the stuff, come back.

Sandra is beaming.

“I got my ring back!”

She had to duct tape a slim attachment to the hose to snake it in the drain, but she has successfully gotten it back.

She puts it in a drawer, I cancel the plumber (who congratulates me) and we go bowling, happily back on track.

The next day, I get a friend request on Facebook from a familiar face, with a message, with a picture attached.

This picture….

Sometimes you just let a miracle speak for itself

The message is from Rossell Mercedes, the tour guide who promised to keep an eye out for my ring, and who took a photo of Sandra’s.

He introduces me to Merfin Vladimir Suarez, the gentleman with a Garrett metal detector (pictured) who found my wedding ring at Juanillo.

A couple days later, after a lot of Google Translate and Paypal mishaps (it was sixty bucks to ship the ring back – that’s a lot of Dominican pesos, and I’m not rich, but I also wanted to reward the guys)….

It’s been a crazy couple of weeks. But God-sent miracles, or, if you prefer, very fortunate confluences of events, do occur.

I thanked Merfin and Rosselle profusely.

Roselle told me in parting –

“Everything that we receive and we did not have before is a blessed thing.”

Every so often we get back what we had and lost. That’s a blessing too!

-Hasta Pronto!