Toward the end of her life, Diane’s mother, a cancer patient, was quite frail. One late-summer day, Diane decided to take her to a street festival at Oaks Park. As Diane pushed the wheelchair along, the two women looked at the wide variety of merchandise displayed. At one point they came across some vendors selling items from Finland. Diane’s mother was Finnish, and quite delighted to meet people who shared a common language. She ended up buying an amethyst ring, set in silver, imported from Finland. The asking price was $20. “Mother offered them $15, and the offer was accepted, which gave her quite a bit of happiness as Mother always liked to "make a deal",” Diane says. “She loved that ring and wore it continuously on her right hand.”

One day Diane had a doctor’s appointment, and brought her mother along. It was sometime later that they realized the ring was gone. “We thought it had come off when she washed her hands in the rest room,” Diane says. That seemed the only realistic possibility, but the ring had not been turned in to anyone at the medical center. “We both looked in the car, in the door side-pocket, on the floor, in her apartment, just everywhere,” Diane says. “Several times we looked and ran our hands through the side-pocket of the car door as Mother liked to keep Kleenex there. The side-pocket was always empty, even of the usual Kleenex.” They didn’t find the ring.

Sometime later, Diane took her mother on a grocery shopping trip. The elderly lady was growing weaker now, and Diane treasured their time together. As Diane wheeled her to the car, the sun was setting, but a last ray of the sun was bright. “As I opened the right-front car door to assist her from the wheelchair, a ray of light from the setting sun cast itself on the side-pocket of the car door,” Diane says. “I could not believe what I saw. It was the amethyst ring! As I took it out and presented it to my mother, we were both completely silent---in thanksgiving and awe.”

Why would God and His angels be interested in returning an ordinary ring to two ordinary women? Perhaps, since Diane’s mother was approaching the end of her life, the ring was meant as a sign of hope, a promise that He had not forgotten them, and would be near them always.

PS Diane has another story on this Archives page---in the animal section---and one of her stories is also in my most recent book, GUARDIAN ANGELS: True Stories of Answered Prayers (Loyola).  Do you think Diane has a special pipeline to heaven?  :)

(C) 2006  Joan Wester Anderson  www.joanwanderson.com