Do You Lose Things? Here’s Some Hope

Posted by admin

November 28, 2008

When Barbara Zabielski’s mother died ten years ago, Barbara inherited her wedding ring. Eventually Barbara’s own rings became too small for her, and recently she began wearing her mother’s ring instead. One day she visited her doctor to get an injection in her hand, and she took off the ring while receiving the treatment. “I thought I put it in my pocket, but when I got home, it wasn’t there,” Barbara says. “I was very upset, so I went back to the doctor’s office to see if it had possibly dropped out of my pocket.” No success. No one had seen the ring.

Barbara searched her house inch by inch, to no avail. The ring was certainly outside, probably lying in a parking lot or a sidewalk. She would never find it. So she prayed that whoever did, would love and cherish it as much as she did.
About two weeks later, Barbara was in the basement, and she heard a noise. It was a bird, flying around the room! How had it gotten into her house, and into the basement? “I tried to catch it, and then called my husband,” Barbara says. “He was astonished, and we finally got the bird to go upstairs.” Following it, they got to the first floor and realized that the bird had disappeared. This was strange. Where had it gone?

Barbara began looking around. “I even started moving things, just in case the bird was caught somewhere,” she says. And when she moved the coffee table, there was her mother’s ring.

“I had vacuumed right there earlier in the week,” Barbara says. She is sure that the ring was not there then. Nor did she ever find the bird, but believes that God’s little creature was actually her guardian angel. And why not?

Mary Garby, of Glenview, Illinois, also had a family keepsake, a diamond tennis bracelet which her father had given to her mother for their 37th wedding anniversary. Her mother had eventually given the bracelet to Mary. It had 39 diamonds and was appraised at $25,000. If I owned a bracelet worth that much, I don’t think I would ever wear it (!), but Mary frequently did, despite the fact that at this particular time, the bracelet was uninsured. And on Friday, January 5, 2007, she lost it.

“I had been to Walgreen’s in Glenview, the Great Frame-up in Morton Grove, Sunset Foods in Northbrook….” Just a typical errand day for Mary, but she didn’t realize that the bracelet was gone until she was getting ready for bed that evening. “At 11:30 that night, Tom and I got back in the car and went to those five stores to check the parking lots and sidewalks, but no bracelet was found.” Mary alerted the police from three different suburbs, and they all took reports. “It only takes one honest person,” one of the officers reminded Mary. Yes, but it was also like looking for a needle in a haystack…

On Saturday, January 6, Mary called all the stores, but no bracelet had been turned in. (She also called her mother. That must have been a difficult conversation).

On Sunday, January 7, Mary and Tom put up flyers in the five stores, and offered a reward.

On Monday, January 8, Mary asked her employer, an admitted atheist, to say a prayer for the jewelry’s return. Later that day, he came to her desk and said, “Mary, I hope you get your miracle.”

On Tuesday, January 9, Mary was late to work. As she hurried into the office, she and the others learned that a co-worker had been diagnosed with cancer. Thoughts of the bracelet completely left Mary’s mind. What was this problem compared with her friend’s? The day was difficult, but when Mary dragged herself home, there was a note on the table from the Glenview police department.

A woman named Barbara had found the bracelet, on the sidewalk outside the Northbrook Walgreen’s. She had taken it to a nearby jeweler, who had sent her to the Northbrook police who sent her on to the Glenview police, (the suburb where the loss had occurred). The evidence technician had met with the woman for a half hour and was amazed at Barbara’s integrity, and her willingness to go out of her way to find the bracelet’s owner. No, she was not a heavenly angel, but certainly one of the best of the earthly kind. “All it takes is one honest person,” the police officer had said. And he was right.

On Wednesday, January 10, Mary brought proof of ownership to the police station and received her bracelet back, in perfect condition. “There are a lot of people I have thanked for this,” Mary says, “including the Carmelite nuns and Padre Pio, who interceded for me. But I tell the story to share hope and inspiration, because miracles really do happen.”