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A Lost Wedding Ring: A Winter's Tale
by Jack Wright

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Lost Wedding Ring by Jack Wright

In the early winter of 1946 the coal industry was still booming. My father worked for Peerless Coal at Glamorgan, Virginia. He said even after the war that loaded trains of coal and coke departed almost daily for steel mills and factories all up and down the east coast.

We lived in a little, white-frame house not far up the hill from the mouth of the mine near the Glamorgan School. My mother had decorated our home with fresh pine cones and boughs tied with bright ribbons. She said the pine needles freshened up the air. Those good times meant presents under the tree, its electric ornaments, bubbling up bright blue and red and green.

I was two and a half years old and it is the first holiday season I can remember. On Christmas night we traveled in to town for a family supper with Aunt Nellie, my mother's sister. She greeted us at the door with her usual high spirits. Joking and teasing, bringing us all good cheer as only she could do. There was a skillet of fried chicken on the stove and I could smell something sweet in the air. During the meal we heard the wail of a siren as the town fire truck roared by. A few minutes later when Aunt Nellie was serving the apple butter stack cake a neighbor rushed to the door and knocked. He told my father that the fire truck was headed for our house.

Mother picked me up and daddy rushed us back home just in time to witness the roof caving in over crackling waves of fire and smoke. I lost all of the new toys under the tree but the biggest loss was my dog, a Boxer named Lady. She had been locked in the basement. Tears streamed from my mother's eyes and that caused me to cry.

A couple of days later my father returned to the house-site. A light snow was sprinkling. He stepped through the charred ruins to where the bedroom had been. Reaching down and running his fingers through the ashes, he uncovered a small shiny piece of metal, a melted puddle of gold. Daddy choked up. He had found what was left of his wedding ring which had been forgotten on the dresser the night of the fire. He marveled at his luck and took the little nugget down to the local jeweler who shaped it back into a ring just like before.

Almost every Christmas I recall this story. My father always said it was a gift to find the ring. He said that even in the bluest moments of life there is always an ember of hope. We just need to search until we uncover it. Now over fifty winters later I find that his words have served me well.