I’m Sure Jesus Would Have Told A Parable About This If He’d Been There

Last night I attacked the kitchen cupboards, pulling out everything, reorganizing it and putting it back in. There are times when imposing order on the chaos becomes imperative, a way of making sense of my life. I pulled out all the medications we have, checked the expiration dates, and tossed everything that was past its date.

There was a small dish in the cupboard, filled with cold medicine. I don’t know why. Az the Husband always medicates his sniffles, and this was a small bowl full of leftover liquicaps. I sighed (I do that. I’m a big sigh-er. It’s kinda annoying.), and upended the bowl over the kitchen garbage.

And as I did, I just-too-late saw a glint of gold in the falling medication and I realized what I used that tiny bowl for: I used to keep my engagement ring in it when I washed dishes.

I have not worn my engagement ring for months. My hands swelled so much with my last pregnancy that it became impractical. I had set it aside at some point, and had not even thought about it in ages.

My engagement ring is not set with a diamond, but an opal. When we got engaged eleven years ago, I refused to wear diamonds because the Sierra Leonese civil war funded its bloodshed through diamonds. Even now I have a distaste for them because their price is unnaturally fixed by a monopoly, De Beers.

I told Az I did not want a diamond, partly because of the obscene expense, and he was grumpy and reluctant about it. He is a conventional guy, and engagement rings were supposed to be diamonds. Then a friend had a dream about us where Az bought me an opal, and we both thought, “Hmm. Opals are nice.” Az told his mother about this, and she said that her own engagement ring had been an opal. So Az the Reluctantly Thrifty decided opals were now a family tradition, and bought me an opal ring, a white and multi-colored stone set in a yellow gold band, shaped like a calla lily bent into a circle.

And this precious but neglected ring had just fallen into my kitchen garbage.

I had a few moments of silence. The ring was not on top. I moved a few things. No ring. I sighed (again). I went to the bottom of the stairs and called up to my husband.

“How much do you love me?” I asked.

Never a good way to start. “I love you very much,” he answered, suspiciously. “Why?”

I explained the problem and he came to the kitchen. We dourly looked at the garbage can, working up our courage. Az held an empty garbage bag and I, piece by piece, lifted trash out of the full kitchen trash can, examined it, and put it in the empty bag.

We got all the way to the bottom and sorted through used coffee grounds and leftover spaghetti. Still no ring. We had missed it somehow.

This time we got a flashlight and I shone it on the bag as Az went through every piece again, transferring it back to the trash can we had just emptied. About halfway through, he found it.

And there was much dancing and jubilation and hand-washing in the House of Mitchell.