My ring, and summer camp

I haven't been posting much this week, because I've been.... working. Strange I know. I worked a week-long summer camp at the international school, complete with an overnight on Thursday when I got to sleep on a gym mat with the kindergartners.

On Monday, the first day of camp, something happened. We were tie- dying T shirts, as you do at summer camp. I was about to dunk a dozen T shirts in a bucket of blue dye, and before I stuck my hands in there, I took off my wedding rings and stuck them in my pocket. I thought I'd save them from turning blue too. About an hour later I had scrubbed my hands as best I could (they still looked a little corpse-like), and reached in my pocket to get the rings. My wedding band was there, but the engagement ring was not. I tried to avoid panicking too much and soon we had a search party of kids and staff all looking for the ring. We searched for about an hour when I finally gave up and went home. I can't remember another time I felt so upset, full of regret, angry at myself, generally awful, and unable to make it better. If there was some free lifetime pass to use and start your day over, I would have cashed mine in right then. Brian and I went back and looked again that evening - still no luck. It wasn't just that the ring is valuable (yes, it is insured) but it's the fact that Brian picked it out for me almost nine years ago and it could never really be replaced. I don't have to go into why it has sentimental value, but it has a lot. And through all of the changes we've been through in those nine years, I've had that ring with me always.

I barely slept that night and tried to talk myself into accepting the loss of the ring and moving on. Even though there was a slight chance it would turn up, I could imagine in falling down a drain or getting kicked someplace that it would never be found. I went to camp Tuesday morning, and as I was setting my bag down in the staff room, one of the teachers walked in with a little boy named Oskar. "Oskar has something for you," she said. His little fingers were holding up my ring! I grabbed it and grabbed Oskar and gave him a hug that probably scared the crap out of him. I bounced around the rest of the day, feeling like my lifetime do-over had come through after all. I almost couldn't believe it - I felt so very blessed.

The rest of the camp week went great. It had to after that day. I got a little gift bag together for Oskar with a squirt gun and some balls and candy. He was a little shy about taking it but I saw him  soaking all his unarmed friends on the playground a few minutes later. I got pretty tired by Thursday afternoon, but the kids were good and generally nice to each other, the weather was mostly dry, and the kindergartners slept all the way until 7:30 on Friday morning.