Thread by @MollyMcKew

I love this story, @MrJonCryer!

Here’s my mom’s:

She had a beautiful but modest diamond wedding ring (the diamond was a gorgeous cut) because she & dad got married when they were grad students.

Dad always wanted to get her a new one later on, but she loved it, said no /1

https://twitter.com/mrjoncryer/status/1315384736605302784

35 yrs later, it was an awful winter in Ohio, feet of snow, ice everywhere, everything covered in road salt in that unnecessary Ohio way

She stopped to get gas in the blowing snow, looks down, realizes the diamond has just fallen out of its setting—onto the salt-strewn ground /2

It’s dark and wet, those terrible salmon-ish “low light pollution” light-post bulbs at the gas station, making everything on the ground look like dirty road salt.

She despairs, thinks she will never find the diamond. She looks around, nothing. Some other ladies help. Nothing. /3

It’s cold and awful and she knows the diamond must be right there, but can’t find it.

She’s about to give up. Maybe scrape up all the salt and grime and take it with her. But when she goes to take the gas thing out and put it back on the pump, it sprays gas everywhere /4

The gasoline changed the garbage light somehow, so she could see the diamond, right at her feet. She took it home, and my dad had it reset for her, still wanting to replace it with a grander stone, but she refused, and she wore it until the day she died.

I have it now :) /fin