Diamonds make lousy best friends.

Things got better last night...then they got really bad.

I sent the kids outside to play so I could clean house. The weather was beautiful, so I threw open the windows & scrubbed away. The kids wore themselves out. My kitchen looks good.

After I tucked them all in, I watched Memoirs of a Geisha and folded laundry. It ended just as Husband came in from work. I washed my face & brushed my teeth so I could crawl in bed. While I was waiting for my face to air dry so I could put on my moisturizer, I started putting away some of my jewelry. When I was putting away my charm bracelet, I saw the ring box my engagement ring lives in & thought, "I ought to try that on & see if it fits again." I haven't been able to wear it for about 18 months, so I've kept it packed away.

I slipped it on my finger & turned out into the light to check the fit. As I turned, I brought my hand closer to my face because something didn't look right (I didn't have on my glasses & couldn't see much). When I realized my ring wasn't sparkling like it should, I ran across the room, grabbed my glasses & looked with horror at the empty setting. My heart dropped.

I grabbed my lock box & carefully emptied the contents onto the floor & searched every crevice of every ring box, necklace box, earring box, and bracelet box in it. I pulled the lining & foam holder out of my engagement ring box. I started to empty the closet where I keep it all when I decided there wasn't much point. I'd never see the diamond past my tears.

I went in the living room & told Husband what happened. I'm not sure he believed me at first, but as soon as I began sobbing again, he knew I wasn't kidding.

We took the closet apart. My diamond is gone.

I sat on the bathroom floor & wept. He held me & let me cry. It's only a stone. It's insured. The world (and our marriage) will not end. But that .48 radian cut carat diamond held my memeories.

The day my FarmBoy proposed. The day (a week later) when I accepted. The trip we made to the locally owned jewelers to look at diamonds. How kind Mr.G was as he pulled out the tray of loose diamonds because Husband didn't care for the selection of rings. My surprise when Husband began conversing in diamond with Mr.G (cut, color, clarity). The day he surprised me at home while I was lounging in my night shirt, telling me he'd been to visit his siblings when he'd really been to pick up my ring. How I couldn't get much done at work that night because the light kept bouncing off my ring. The way my heart would skip a beat at the thought of what that diamond meant. Princess's anxiety at our wedding because she had to hold my engagement ring through the wedding ceremony. How BabyGirl's eyes would light up when I told her about it all. My plans to save my ring for one of my sons or grandsons to give his girl.

And that leads me to my suspicions about the fate of my diamond. A diamond does not get up and climb out of a white gold setting while tucked safely away in a ring box in an open lock box in a closet. Two of the prongs show a bit of mangling. None of my other jewelry is missing (my Sweet 16 diamonds, my pearls, my emeralds).

I have a sneaking suspicion that a certain little girl was messing with things she shouldn't have been messing with & things went horribly pear shaped for her. She's still sleeping so I haven't been able to ask her about it. I know that if she did lose it, it was unintentional. But I'm also pretty sure if she had a hand in it, it's a good thing I found out the way I did. I'm afraid I may have unloaded on her for getting into my jewelry & losing my diamond if I'd have found out while she was doing it. As it is, I've had a cooling off period & BabyGirl didn't have to witness the sobbing, hysterical mess I was last night.

While I know I would have been just as upset about my ring at any other time, I think the stress of the past month & all the worries over the health of loved ones came crashing down on me last night. I think the sobbing was a much needed release. I've been choked up a few times in the past week, but I've not been able to let loose & weep. Maybe I needed to.