Diamond Mysteries

It was a crisp February morning when Sarah finally got around to going through Gram's jewelry box. It had been three weeks since her will had been finalized and nearly two months since the funeral. Gram was eighty-nine and the last of her grandparents to find their way home. "She was everyone's bet that death could be licked," was the popular joke around family get-togethers but now her favorite lady was gone. Having lost her mother in an awful car accident when she was three, Gram (Mrs. Beatrice Holmes to the rest of the world) was more like a mother and confident then she was a traditional grandmother. She was the one who taught her how to act like a lady, taught her how to curtsy and follow her dream and heart whenever doubt creeped into her soul.

So it came as no surprise how difficult it would be to open a box of memories filled with charm bracelets; add-a-bead necklaces; sterling silver from her turquoise phase and of course, "The Ring." As the only granddaughter the ring had been promised to her when she had barely learned to walk. She could still hear Gram's words echoing in her head, "Little Sarah, this ring used to belong to my grandmother. Bought on a rail man's salary and some day it will belong to you." Sarah had to wipe the tears from her eyes as she held this sacred piece of family history in her hands. She knew when her young daughter was old enough she too would be told the story about, "The Ring."

With all the sparkling baubles and beads, was a neatly organized stack of papers, aged yellow with time. In that stack of receipts and appraisals she found the original sales ticket of $629.00 (a king's ransom in those days) for the ring. It was over 100 years old. With that were a few appraisals that had been done on the ring, the last one dated Nov. 14th, 1929. It valued the ring at over $3,100.00!! The rest of the papers were receipts for appliances that had long since gone to their reward along with the original deed on Gram's old house.

As Sarah slipped the ring on to her finger for the first time it didn't make its way past her knuckle. Gram had lost a lot of weight over the years and it had been sized down repeatedly (Gramps always took care of that before he past away almost a decade ago). The ring would need to be sized again if she was going to ever do this ring justice and allow the world to view it once more in all its glory.

Michael had been dating Mary Katherine (a born-again christian) off and on for almost three years. It seemed every time they would get close to a commitment some monkey wrench would send them back to square one. After a lot of soul searching it finally dawned on Mike that even though he had told M.K. (Mary Katherine) he loved her, he had never, "Put his money where his mouth was." So when it came time to clock out on Friday, he headed straight for the mall to buy an engagement ring (his ticket to a new life). This would finally settle once and for all to Mary Katherine and the rest of the world that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her.

As it turned out Mike did have a nice little nest egg for emergencies and he could think of nothing better than to spend the $4,381.00 that it had taken him three years to save for his beautiful M.K. The sale at the jeweler went well but he did have to admit he was a little overwhelmed with how expensive diamonds were. Thank goodness at the last minute the jeweler said that just for him he would lower his price by 50% or he never would have been able to afford that sparkling one-carat heart shape diamond.