The Ring, A Story About Stewardship and Angels

            I dropped out of high school at 17 years old.  I was living on my own at a young age.  I was a legal secretary, while I went to college, part-time.  It took me seven years to get a degree that way. I desperately wanted to be a lawyer.  I found myself, occasionally, hanging out at a bar where all the lawyers went. 

            One night I drank too much, and a lawyer drove me home.  I woke up in the morning and the first thing I remembered was I hadn’t come home in my own car.  I needed to call a cab.  It was a weekday.  Just then I heard knock, knock, knock at my door, and there stood Joel Stein, a lawyer, looking all spiffy in his suit.  “I thought you would like a ride back to your car.”  I thanked him.

            About a dozen years later I was a lawyer.  A woman hired me to represent her with some issues pertaining to her husband’s estate.  Her husband was Joel Stein. 

            The widow didn’t have much money.  I don’t recall there was much money in the estate.  I think she just had a couple issues.  She paid me, in part, with a ring.  It was Joel Stein’s mother’s wedding ring.  It had the couples’ initials inside, with a date, 1943.  Joel Stein must have been a few years younger than my Dad.  I wore the ring a lot.  I have very small fingers.  I oftentimes wear rings over larger rings to hold them in place. 

            About ten years later I started looking at that ring and the voice inside my head told me that ring wasn’t really mine.  Joel Stein had a daughter, not the daughter of the wife I represented.  I am an avid genealogist and a treasurer of heirlooms.  It struck me as ridiculous I had that ring. 

            I searched through Joel Stein’s file and came across the daughter’s address, in another state.  I wrote her a letter asking if she wanted the ring.  I never heard from her and the letter never came back.  A year or so later I sent a second letter, same result.

            Then I got on Facebook.  One day I searched for Stacy Stein Baker.  I found her, in the state where she was in the mid-1990s.  I sent her a message and asked if she was Joel Stein, the Fort Lauderdale lawyer’s, daughter.  I never got a reply.  I still wore that ring all the time.  I would look at it and think, “This isn’t really yours.  You’re safe-keeping it.”  I have quite a few family heirlooms.  I wear my grandmother’s wedding ring a lot.  My daughter is not into family history like I am.   I thought someday I will die and a family member will look at this ring and wonder who it belonged too.  Maybe they will make up a story.  I will be shouting down from heaven, “It’s Joel Stein’s mother’s wedding ring.” 

            On Sunday, October 16^th, 2016 I got a message from Stacy Stein Baker.  She said she was Joel Stein’s daughter.  How did I know her father?  I jumped up from my computer and told my boyfriend, “I just got a message I have been waiting for for years.”  He knew the story about the ring.  He asked if I was still going to give it to her.  I said yeah.  I would miss it because it had been with me for so long and I wear it all the time, but it’s not mine, nothing’s changed.  The ring really belongs to Stacy. 

            Stacy was ecstatic when I told her about the ring.  Yes, she wanted it.  She didn’t understand how that message I sent her from 2012 just popped up in her in-box.  I figure it went to spam.  I don’t know how it left spam.  She said she didn’t remember what the ring looked like.  I said like this

Stacy said that picture flooded her with memories of her grandmother in Fort Lauderdale.

           I was really busy this week, but I knew Stacy was waiting for the ring with baited breath, so I took it to the post office on Wednesday.  I told her it was guaranteed to be delivered by 3 PM Friday, that’s the best the US Postal Service will do, but they have insurance and I don’t think Fedex does.  I insured the ring and prayed I didn’t have to make a claim on the insurance, because that would ruin the whole thing.

            Work has been tough this week, but this afternoon up popped this picture

It sent chills through my body.  Stacy asked if she could pay me back for the postage.  No, that would kind of ruin the mitzvah, nickel and diming.  Seeing the ring on her finger makes me very happy.

            Stacy told me October 18^th, was the 23^rd anniversary of her father’s death.  She said this was the first time in a long time she felt close to him.  I really wonder about the timing and the message popping up in her FB.  The whole story is so crazy.  I am going to guess Stacy was not close to her step-mother.  I never met the step-mother until she came to my office to retain me.  She didn’t know I knew her husband.  This story is not about an evil step-mother, so please don’t pull that from it.  If the ring had not ended up with me it would have gone elsewhere.  This story is about ethereal serendipity.  It’s a miracle I ended up with the ring.  Me, who has an affinity for family history. I kept thinking Joel drove me home when I was drunk, and he came back for me the next morning to get me to my car.  The ring was not really mine, and now it’s right where it belongs.