Joy

It was a dark but pleasant evening. After dinner, I felt like taking a walk and working off some energy. Kathy offered to walk with me, and we had a very enjoyable walk and talk. Soon after we got home, I reached up to remove my necklace and discovered that the chain had broken and the pendant was gone. Surely someone at the dinner table would have noticed that the two ends of the chain were hanging down from my neck, unconnected and without a pendant. Since that didn’t happen, it seemed likely the 52-year-old chain had broken in some mysterious way while Kathy and I were walking.

I thought there was little chance of finding a pendant that’s only a half-inch in diameter in the dark, so I decided to retrace my 1.5-mile route in the morning. Between evening and morning, the overnight rain in the forecast could wash the small pendant down a sewer drain; a vehicle could drive over it and damage it; someone else could find it and pick it up; etc., etc. The pendant was a birthday gift from a man I dated during my freshman year of college and it had my birthstone (aquamarine) mounted on it. It wasn’t valuable, but I always liked it, I wore it frequently, and it gave me joy. I didn’t expect to find it, but it was worth a try.

In the morning light, Kathy, Annette, and I started walking, keeping our eyes on the road and scanning the concrete for my pendant. After a little more than a mile, I spotted my pendant lying face-up and undamaged in a hollow spot on the road surface. I shouted, “There it is!” and the three of us went into happy mode. We were all surprised but grateful that our hunt was successful.

Today I bought a new chain for the pendant and I wore it home from the jewelry store. It gives me joy again.