Wedding Band

Pictured here is my wedding band as it looks on the ring finger of my left hand. I took this picture shortly after I found my ring after it had been lost for almost 24 hours.

You see, I lost it on Monday night (July 30) as I was throwing a roll of toilet paper into a tree on the quad at Wake Forest University. I know what you're thinking, "It serves you right for being so immature!" But hundreds of people were there rolling in honor of the late basketball coach Skip Prosser. Anyways, being a lefty, I felt the ring fly off of my finger as I let go of the roll. Since it was already dark outside I knew that finding it would be difficult. A few people pulled out their cell phones and tried to use the dim light on them to help in the hunt, but even with the assistance of the outrageously bright light of a local TV station's camera, I knew that my search would only be successful in the daylight hours.

The next day (July 31) I returned with my family (the kids were pumped about crawling around in the grass) to the Wake Forest campus after lunch and began my search in the area where I knew that I was the night before. The grass there is really thick and with all of the recent rain it needs mowing. I realized that I needed more help, so I headed out to Hauser Rental and rented a metal detector.

I came back to campus and, using the metal detector, searched again for over an hour until about 5:30 p.m. Discouraged, I met my wife and kids for supper at my parent's house and, before heading home, decided to give it one more try. This time my dad went with me. We got back to campus at 7:45 and decided we had about 30 more minutes or so of good daylight. We aggressively searched the same area in which I had previously searched and I decided to try to reenact the night before. I stood exactly where I had thrown the infamous roll and tried to imagine the angle of my arm on the follow through. Once I had a good idea of the angle of my follow through I headed in that direction with my metal detector.

It wasn't but a couple of minutes later when my detector buzzed loudly and I knelt down in the grass to see what it had found. There, standing on its side in ankle deep grass, was my wedding band. The funeral for the Wake Forest coach had just ended and the chapel bells were ringing, so my shout for joy mixed well with the moment.

My wedding band is incredibly important to me. I know that it's just a piece of precious metal and my wife assured me that I am worth more to her than a ring, but still it symbolizes something so much more. It means that I am "taken" (not that anyone else would necessarily want to have me) and that I am fully committed to another person. It also means that I am proud to be married, which I absolutely am.

Many people down-play marriage or the words they use in talking about their spouses are incredibly sad. For the almost 24 hours that my finger was ringless, I felt incomplete and naked. My wife means the world to me as does my family, and that ring is a symbol of just how important they are. Sure, I could have gone and purchased another ring but it wouldn't have been the same ring that my wife placed on my finger the day we were married. That ring is a constant reminder of not only that special day but also of the incredible blessing that my wife is to me.

Now, I'm considering super glue as a deterrent for this same thing ever happening again.