I lost my wedding ring.

This was no ordinary wedding ring; I didn’t just pop into Zales, slap down a credit card and walk out with a big sparkling rock. If I had done that, I probably wouldn’t have felt so bad about loosing it.

The story of my ring started five years ago, the way most engagement rings do, with my boyfriend asking me to marry him.

At the time, we lived deep in the jungles of Panama.

He and I had driven the 2,759 miles through Mexico and Central America during a ‘Summer of Love Tour,” (we respectively like to call it) two years earlier. We arrived, fell in love and accidentally never left.

We were creating a sweet little life for ourselves in the jungle, overlooking the Pacific Ocean. We built a house perched atop of a cliff lined with mango trees and below was a small river mouth that streamed down from the rolling green hills straight into ocean.

Some mornings—and particularly after a good rain—we would walk down to the beach and pan for gold. It was never very much, but it was relaxing and exciting to watch the tiniest speckles of gold shimmer in the tropical sun.

Over time those, small speckles accumulated into a decent amount of pure gold.

As our love grew over the years, so did our family, with the arrival of our first son—and he asked me to marry him. Since there wasn’t a Zales within several thousand miles, he did the next best thing and asked for my hand in marriage, with a black rubber gasket (like the thing you use to stop your facet from leaking. Really.)

I know what your thinking, but it was actually quite romantic.

He proposed at our favorite spot, which we call Two Hearts, because the natural landscape gives the appearance of just that: two hearts. Although he never officially got down on one knee (something I had always teased him about) I said yes and cried and all was magical in the World. (This is the actual spot). 

Eventually, he replaced the black rubber ring with a lovely, simple platinum one. It was a good thing too, since the small gasket kept breaking and I think that at one point, I actually did have to use it to stop our facet from leaking.

Finally, we collected enough gold from the river to make a proper wedding band for each of us; I had gold fused to my platinum ring and he had made an elegant gold band.

Two weeks ago, I lost that ring.

I was devastated.

It was a sickening feeling to realize I had lost the one thing of true value that I owned. To me, this ring symbolized not only the union of our partnership but also all of the time and hard work during our years in the jungle, building a life for ourselves. Nothing came easy down there and we had to work together—every inch of the way—to make things happen.

Every time I look at my ring, I am reminded of that.

I had placed my ring in the pocket of my pants while I was adjusting during my weekly yoga class. “Why did you take it off in the first place and how could of forgotten about it?” I was angry at myself—and sad—and I felt like I had betrayed my husband.

I refused to believe it was gone for good.

For days, I visualized my ring breaking up into tiny particles and teleporting itself back to me; visual alchemy, if you will. Each morning I woke up expecting it to be under my bed or in my running shoe. I knew, wherever it had fallen out, it would find its way back to my finger. It had to—there was no exception!

That ring was a part of me…the one tangible thing I have that can tell my entire love story at just one glance.

A week later, still sulking, I was nowhere closer to finding my ring or it teleporting itself to me. I started to lose hope. Just then, my husband walked into the living room,  got down on one knee, pulled my ring from his pocket and asked me to marry him…again. My mouth dropped, my heart nearly leaped out of my chest. I was speechless! My ring found me.

At first I thought he had played a terrible joke on me—but it turns out he was just as shocked as I was to find the ring in the pocket of his jeans; how could it of gotten in there?

We walked through all the possible scenarios and the only logically conclusion we could come up with was that at some point I had to of placed the pocket in my yoga pants directly on top of the pocket of his jeans—the ring could have  fallen perfectly from one into the other, and then hung upside down on a hanger in the closet,without falling out, for a week.

Theoretically, this all could logically transpire, but if you ask me, this was nothing short of a miracle. (Especially since he and I swear up and down those pants had not left that hanger in several weeks).

Visual alchemy, perhaps?

It makes just as much sense as the logical explanation.

If you really want to know the real truth though, I don’t care how it got into those jeans, because what I really believe to be true is that my ring has magical powers and wasn’t ready to leave me just as much as I wasn’t ready to leave it.

Oh, and for the record, I said yes (again) and cried and all was magical in the World.

Alli Akard is an ever evolving, never settling, always-questioning woman of the world, but it is the simple things that keep her attention. Not one for living on barrowed time, she strives to create a little magic in each day. She’s also been known to have competitive snail races on Tuesday afternoons with her kids.

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Ed: Bryonie Wise