The story of the missing ring

Lost & Found

When I graduated from college in 1995, my parents wanted to give me a gift to commemorate the occasion. Instead of a typical class ring, I opted for a similar style ring but one that represented my fraternity, Sigma Nu. So on graduation day, I unwrapped a neatly wrapped box and inside was a gold ring with the Sigma Nu crest on one side and the badge on the other. I loved that ring from day one.

Sigma Nu means a lot to me. I am one of the original Founding Fathers on the campus of Southeast Missouri State University. Thirty-two men put in a lot of hours to create a new chapter. There were late nights, weekend road trips and lots of countless other tasks. But a year later we reached our goal and the Mu Kappa chapter of Sigma Nu was born.

The ring served as a reminder of that hard work and dedication. Not just toward Sigma Nu, but for the degree, I had earned too. I was the first in my family to graduate from college, something that I’m proud of nearly 25 years later.

However, somewhere along the way, the ring that I loved so much got lost. In my mind, it was simply misplaced. I’m guessing now it was probably about eight or nine years ago. The last time I remembered having it was after doing some yard work. My hands were covered in mud and I slipped the ring off my finger and put it in the spice cabinet of our kitchen. I didn’t want to leave it on the counter because my wife had previously knocked my wedding ring off and sucked it up in the vacuum.

I don’t remember putting the Sigma Nu ring back on after that. I looked frantically for days never knowing what happened to it. I have close to a dozen dreams since then of finding the ring in obscure places. In one it was under a piece of furniture in our living room. In other, the ring was inside my nightstand, which we didn’t even own when I lost it.

To this day, I continued searching for it, digging deep into our couch cushions and scanning over it with a metal detector thinking it was caught in a crevice. I never had any luck. I even looked at replacing it but couldn’t find one like the one I owned. I was starting to lose hope.

Fast forward to this past weekend. My wife and some friends took our boat out for a river trip. After hours on the river and lake, we pulled into a marina for gas. I opened the glove box to get my wallet and low and behold the ring was right there. I could not believe my eyes. I was so excited. I slipped the ring back on my finger celebrated finding it. I had told my daughter about misplacing the ring just the other day and here I’d found it.

So obviously after that day of yard work, I put the ring back on and took it off during a boating trip and put it in the glovebox for safe keeping. We’ve been out on that boat dozens of times since then, but I guess the bouncing on the river knocked it out from wherever it was wedged and back into my life. I know it’s just a ring but it represents so much to me. I can’t tell you how excited I am to have it back.