Losing my wedding ring broke me. Even as I was scouring the house and my car to find it I felt hopeless. I knew there was nothing I could do to find it. It was gone. And most likely forever. It either it came off my finger in a Christmas tree, that someone took home, or it wound up being swept into a pile of pine needles off the asphalt.

The next morning I went back to the lot to look, because the lot closed ten minutes before I had realized it was gone, and the stall in which we had browsed was near empty and all the needles that had littered the lot floor were piled up out of a 3x3x3 cardboard box.

It’s just a trinket and it’s not the marriage or the person, but it was symbolic. I’m already losing my husband to ALS and now the keepsake I had intended to treasure was taken from me.

My husband came up with a fix to have his ring (which he no longer wears because it’s entirely too big for his finger now) melted down and reforged into two new ones we both could wear.

I love the gesture but, like my helplessness at finding the ring, I don’t even know where to begin to look for that. I’m sure if I called up a ring shop they could tell me but, like I said, I feel broken. Hopelessness has embraced my entirety.

Then to add insult to injury I had two shirts either stolen out of my mailbox or delivered to a different house. These were purchased for me and my husband. On them was the phrase “Not today.” And what do we say to the god of death? Well, evidently you also say that to my online purchase.

Losing my wedding ring was just more proof that in life nothing is permanent. Even if you’re self aware to feel or hear when it may be taken, sometimes you’re just not paying attention. And more often than not it’s totally out of your control.