Diamond in the Rough (Road)

I’ve been preparing for an upcoming milestone birthday, what I call Anne 6.0. Parts of it are going well, like a new look. Other parts still have a few bugs, like my fitness level. If you read my last post, you already know this.

 

Since that blog entry, I’ve maintained a regular training schedule, better diet, and even started to bring down my pace per mile for a trail run on my actual birthday. I got others to sign up too. Bought new trail runners. Built up a little distance. I even planned a date night, which we haven’t done in more than a year. I’ve generally been in good spirits. Still am, despite what happened earlier today.

 

I was 22 minutes into a short, pre-dawn run when I fell downhill. I’d taken precautions – running on an even surface with a flashlight and staying alert, etc. But somehow my ankle rolled without warning, sending the rest of my body into freefall. Man, that road is hard. I scraped my hands, even under nailbeds, yet my head and side of my face absorbed the worst of it. Memories of similar falls flooded back as I quickly got up, brushed myself off and hobbled home on the uneven sidewalk I’d tried to avoid. 

 

Without a word to my husband, already at work in the dining room, I rinsed the debris from my hand cuts with soapy water and then doused them in hydrogen peroxide. I got everything ready for our teenager’s morning medications, outfit and meal like other days. I took two Aleve and gingerly dabbed at my mercifully superficial side-face road rash. Then I plopped on the couch with an ice pack to start the RICE routine I know well.

 

Of course, I reevaluated everything in my life, every poor decision beginning with this morning’s run and running in general. Then, after getting the kid on the bus, I tenderly took the stairs to my home office and did another hand inspection. That’s when I broke down and began wailing.

 

My small, pear-shaped diamond had fallen out of my engagement ring on impact.

 

It’s weird what goes through your head. I didn’t reconstruct my spill; instead, my mind settled on the day we chose that ring. How vibrant and naive and hopeful we were. That was almost 40 years ago, yet I remember everything – from my outfit and hairstyle to humidity levels and our exact parking spot in a Norfolk, Va., strip mall. I knew then I’d never be alone in life. That someone wanted to be with me as much as I did him. The whole day sparkled in a way it rarely did.

 

We were both young and broke and the size of the diamond reflected it; but I never considered an upgrade as incomes and anniversaries accumulated. I only took the ring off once (other than for cleanings) – when I had to get it resized. Seems my fingers spread right along with the rest of me once middle age hit. 

 

My husband heard me crying and came up to my office, with me propping up my ankle again and wiping tears with a convenient cleaning cloth. He asked if I remembered where I fell, and I said yes, but the diamond could have fallen out at any point on the slow walk home. Let’s look anyway, he told me. I told him it was too much a longshot. It was most likely in someone’s tire tread by now since it was on a busy street with fast traffic. Let’s look anyway, he said.

 

I didn’t even bother to put on shoes (on the good foot, at least) and was still a sniffling mess when we pulled his sedan into a long line of parked cars and got out, careful to avoid being hit by fast-moving motorists. I knew the general vicinity to search, and was foiled repeatedly by a sunny glint reflecting off glass shards from some prior crash or break-in. This is useless, I thought, while my husband continued scanning two cars ahead of me. 

 

Then I saw it, wedged in a shallow crack in the road surface. A perfect pear-shaped diamond exactly where I went down. I quickly retrieved the gem, inspected it and thanked God we'd picked quality over size. It was in mint condition (without a microscope). 

 

My husband and I hugged and then went home. He was back at his desk in under 10 minutes.

 

I cried again, of course. This time out of relief. How quickly my grief turned to gratitude. For this day. For this discovery. For this man who picked and paid for that pretty pear-shaped diamond all those years ago. 

 

Photo is of my "good hand" whose palm isn't torn up (it's the other side that's gross) and the size of that diamond to show just how lucky we were that it somehow stood out from all the other debris embedded in the asphalt road.