morning was a ring she had not seen in six years and never
expected to see again.
It was inside a jewelry box, along with a note that asked:
"Remember Me?"
"I didn't believe it at first. I really was actually quite
confused," Leslie recalled. "I thought, 'What is this?' And
he had to say, 'That's our ring!'"
The Tillers, who live in Midlothian, last saw the
engagement ring in May 2007, a month before they were
married. On Christmas morning, she thought her husband
was kidding at first.
"Then I said, 'Where was it?' He said, 'In the car.'" She
said, laughing, "'I told you! I told you it was in that car!'"
The ring, with three diamonds that total a carat, disappeared
in the back seat of a car belonging to another couple, Jacob
and April Hickman, who drove Adam and Leslie home
from a wedding in Petersburg in 2007.
At the time, the Hickmans were newlyweds. Adam Tiller,
Jacob Hickman and the man whose wedding they attended
that day had been fraternity brothers at Randolph-Macon
College.
Leslie remembers well the ride home that night. "I was
playing with the ring in my lap, twisting it. I actually had
gotten a little bit of food or something on it at the wedding.
It came off in the car. It was nighttime and dark and when
it first came off, when I dropped it, I assumed it was in my
lap."
She said she felt around her lap. "Then I kind of felt the
seat and I didn't feel it. I didn't say anything at first. Then
when we pulled in the driveway and got home, I said, 'Hey,
hey, you guys, help me find the ring.'"
But they couldn't find it.
"All four of us … we all actually were using our cellphones
and whatever little car light we had to look in the dark, and
we could not find the ring," she said.
The $4,400 ring was not insured, and Adam had not
finished paying for it. "We went a little nuts. … We went
crazy and the other couple said, 'You know what? We're
going to leave you all alone' because we were kind of
having a meltdown."
Before the search was finally called off, she said, "we did
metal detectors in the driveway, in our yard. We went back
to the wedding site, we looked through trash. It was a big
ordeal."
The car also was thoroughly searched, to no avail.
"Me and my husband never saw the car again," Leslie said.
"We've seen that couple perhaps once or twice over the last
6 1/2 years now."
"We never thought we'd see that ring again," she said.
But not long before Christmas, Jacob Hickman, who lives
in Greenville, S.C., took his car in for servicing. When a
technician removed the back seat, he discovered the ring
and returned it to Hickman.
Reached by telephone, technician Brandon Estelle said the
ring was between a shelf and a cushion under the seat. He
said he usually finds things like loose change and french
fries, not something as valuable as a diamond ring.
Hickman sent Adam Tiller a photo of the ring via his
smartphone, but at first Adam didn't recognize it. Hickman
called and urged him to take a closer look.
"I blew it up and it was the ring," Adam said. "And I said,
'Holy cow!' (Hickman) said, 'You're going to be husband
of the year,' and I said, 'She's going to get a good
Christmas gift.'"
After the ring disappeared, Adam went to the same jeweler
and got another engagement ring for Leslie, smaller than
the first. They were married June 30, 2007, and now have
two children, Mikayla, 5, and Tyson, 3.
Leslie said she will now wear the original ring but will keep
the one she has been wearing since their marriage.
The returned ring has an important alteration, however.
When it was lost, she said, she was wearing it on her right
hand. As it turned out, the ring finger on her left hand is
smaller than the one on her right.
She had the jeweler resize the ring, and she got it back
Thursday.
"I don't want to take any chances," she said.
Via: Information Nigeria
No comments:
Post a Comment