Excuse the long pause since my last blog. Work has me at my wit's end.
OK, on Sunday, I return from the Seattle Seahawks game, tired from a long drive and a little bit pissed off at my brother-in-law. He was being a little sensitive about his driving and I was just mentioning to him that cops love pulling over drivers who hit over 80 mph in the rain... nothing big.
I walk into the house and my wife is on the couch, looking as if she'd been through the ringer. On a Sunday, that's not good.
Before I could say hello, she speaks: "I lost my wedding ring!"
Have you ever felt as if all of your color has left your face, leaving just a cold space??? Yeah, that's how I felt. So much for being tired. It was time to tear up the house.
Every couch in the house was torn up and flipped upside down, her steps were retrased and she went back to church, where she just came back from for Vespers, to search there. I went outside in the rain to search the driveway and around her car.
Nothing.
It was Midnight before we went to bed. Exhausted. Stressed out. Emotional. And then there was my wife, who was absolutely quiet and sad. I didn't sleep. I kept seeing in my head the ring just out of reach everywhere in the house.
Got up early, searched the house again, showered, ate breakfast, went to work, came home five hours later, searched the house and then returned to work for basketball previews to write. Came home, wife has her sister helping out.
All though the recycling? Nope.
All of the garbage cans in the house and outside? Nothing. Very stinky. Dry-heaved for a while afterward.
The couches torn apart again? Yeah, but nothing again. But I did find an old newspaper front page from 1999. Creepy!
Boxes? Nothing. Cleaning supply closet? Nothing. The bathroom again? Nothing.
It is actually possible to search throughout your house for one small thing, find everything else under the sun but what you are looking for. In all honesty, I never thought that was possible. Yeah, I know. I'm weird.
It is now 8:15 p.m. I'm now taking my first break, typing this and listening to the Jets-Titans game on the radio. And I'm still going to look...
Why? Because I'm more upset over the loss than she is. Why, you ask?
Well, if you've never been married, you might not understand, but I'll tell you anyway. That ring was the ring I slipped onto her finger when I said the vows, meant every word of it, looked into her eyes and knew that the one decision that I thought I'd never make -- asking her to marry me -- was the most right decision I ever made.
And, as I sit here, I feel a tiny sense of hopelessness and there isn't anything I can do except to keep looking until I find it or drop in exhaustion. I can buy her another ring, maybe a better one than the first one, but it won't speak to me like that Irish knot ring did when I slipped it onto her finger over three months ago.
The search for the ring continues. Wish me luck.