What Once Was Lost

Two weeks ago I lost my favorite bracelet. It was a bracelet made with sliver and 22 small black gemstones, not very expensive ones but still lovely. When the light is right a star appears in each of the small stones.

I had worn it 24/7 for almost exactly five years, having purchased it on October 12, 2007 in Agra, India and only taking it off once in those five years when I had to have surgery and they wouldn’t let me wear it. But that was the only time that it had been off of my arm.

It was purchased in a small shop on the same day as this picture was taken.

The day that HHBL and I visited the back end of the Taj Mahal. The reason for only being able to see the posterior of the Taj Mahal being…

- Missing our connection to Dehli because of bad weather thereby……
- meaning that we had to spend the night and part of the next evening in the Newark airport before….
- we snagged the ONLY two stand by seats on an overbooked flight to Dehli which meant…..
- we had to fly in MIDDLE seats for a 14 hour flight and the guy sitting next to me had a 2 year old on his lap….for the whole 14 hours…..
- which meant that when we got to Dehli we were a day behind in our packed schedule causing us…..
- to go to the wrong hotel the first evening, quickly deducing that it was a Muslim hotel and I was not welcome thereby causing our driver to…..
- drive us to the correct hotel but not before driving three blocks down a wrong street meaning that…
- he threw the car in reverse and backed down those three blocks, backed around the cow in the street, backed THROUGH the very busy intersection before finally depositing us at the right place but causing us to….
- to go to Agra with a driver on a FRIDAY rather than the anticipated THURSDAY and when we got there, after a three hour drive, we found…..
- Friday being a Muslim holy day and the Taj Mahal being a Muslim shrine it wasn’t open. So our driver kindly (said with some sarcasm)……
- made sure that we saw the “better” and “less crowded” (unless you count the crowd of people trying to sell me something) view of the Taj. AND he made sure that……
- we could do some shopping (quel surprise!). And in the shop that he so kindly directed us to…..
- I found a bracelet that I loved. The first price quoted just made me laugh. I quoted back a price that I knew would not be taken….
- He quoted another price that was laughable…..
- I came up $10….
- He quoted again, a price that I wouldn’t pay…..
- I quoted my final offer…..
- He said no…..
- I walked away….
- He blinked and took my offer.

I loved that bracelet. It made me smile every time I looked at it and remembered that fabulous trip.

Imagine my horror when I looked down at my wrist on Thursday, November 15th and realized that the bracelet wasn’t there. I saw my other silver bracelet from Peru, I reached up into my sleeve to pull down my India bracelet and realized that it wasn’t on my wrist. I actually searched around in my sleeve for a second but it wasn’t there. My heart just sank and I stood there for a moment in mourning. I had done errands that morning, not many but a few, and the next day I made the rounds of all the places I had stopped and I asked if anyone had turned the bracelet in and the answer in each place was no. The bracelet was gone.

But life moves on. I would daily fiddle with my bracelets and it just didn’t feel right without my Taj bracelet but what could I do.

And then yesterday came. I hadn’t ever made it down to the mail box so HHBL picked up the mail on his way up the driveway. He walked in the door and the first words out of his mouth were…

I am going to make your day.

Now I could take that any number of ways. Ways which I will not detail for you here because this is a family blog of sorts.

He took my hand and…..

Dropped my lost Taj bracelet into my palm!!!!!!!!!!!!

When I went to pick up the mail I was rooting around in the back of the mail box and there it was.

I just stood there and looked at it. It had been in the mailbox all that time. I don’t remember catching it on anything when I got the mail that day but I must have.

All is right with my bracelet world.