Lord of the (Lost) Ring

Literally the best picture I could find prominently
featuring my wedding ring.

It's been about a month now since I lost my wedding ring, and it hasn't bothered me as much as I thought. (Though, if you ever find yourself at Emerald Lake and you happen to disregard rules, remove your life jacket, and deep dive down to its murky depths and find a simple, white gold men's wedding band, give me a call.) The main thing I miss is the built-in fidget device, as I occasionally find my thumb trying to play with a piece of jewelry that is no longer there. Oh, and I guess the symbol of unending love thing too.

For those in the know, Emerald Lake is a family is a giant man-made hole in the ground just outside of Hamilton, Ontario, filled with water where people can go camping or spend the day in and around the aforementioned water. It's actually a neat little spot to spend the day, though be prepared to pay a premium for the privilege. The main attraction (for my family anyway) is the giant floating water toys: industrial-strength floating play structures including a trampoline, slides, and some pretty righteous see-saw-like contraptions. (A note for the uninitiated: bring your own life jackets or bring some cash to rent them ($30 per person, $25 refunded after they're returned), as they are required for happy water fun times).



So after waiting in line to rent some life jackets and staking out a place on the beach, my family and I were ready to go. We decided to start off on the giant slide, and we got into line in the middle of the water, which really results in less of a line and more of a mass of people floating in the general vicinity of something. I was paired off with my son while my wife was behind me waiting "in line" behind us with my daughter.

As soon as we were called, summoned by the authority of a sun-parched teenager making minimum wage, I reached up to grab one of the handles to hoist myself up on the giant rubbery Goliath. My initial grasp resulted in my left hand brushing the handle, but my fingers couldn't quite close around it, and instead, it caught on my wedding band, which did not move with the rest of my hand, tumbling into the murky depths right in front of me. I took one, clumsy swing trying to catch it, but to no avail.

Incredulous, I turned to my wife and said "I just lost my wedding ring."

There's a large range of possible emotional responses here. I wasn't sure how my wife would react. In fact, I was still caught mid-reaction myself. I was trying to process the implications while informing my wife, still trying to scramble up onto a giant, floating slide and not holding up the line of people behind us.

I think that, in credit to both of us, we took this new development quite well. As a collector of movies, video games, and Star Wars paraphernalia, one of my worries is potentially being stunted emotionally and psychologically by an unrepentant materialism. While I still may not be completely cognitively unencumbered by these proclivities, I experienced only a mild emotional reaction at the loss of so precious a belonging.

There was, of course, a bit of frustration at something with so slight a chance happening, and the object itself (literally) within my grasp. A brief sense of loss, but also a realization that it was just a thing, and while that particular individual object was, in essence, irreplaceable, the meaning of the thing was still with me.

My wife and I shared a shrug afterwards. "What can you do?" There was a shared understanding, something profound, an important overlap in our worldviews: there was no use worrying about something you had no control over. Energies were better spent on things you could influence. Besides which, my wedding ring was only a thing. It was a lot easier to let go than I thought.

Plus, now I get to go shopping for a new one. Maybe titanium this time around.

I may (admittedly) still have a ways to travel down the path of enlightenment after all.