A bunch of people from Portland to Alabama who, up until now, were complete strangers went out of their way to reunite her with a precious possession.
Melisse De La Mare and Jim Gibson have been married for nearly three decades but they’re feeling like newlyweds all over again. Melisse has her wedding ring back after years without it.
Melisse said she lost the ring in 1992 just months after marrying Jim. “I was really, really sad,” she explained. She said the ring slipped off her finger while she and Jim and a bunch of friends were skiing at Mount Bachelor.
“I just didn’t want to tell my mother-in-law because it was her ring,” Jim said. “Yeah, that sinking feeling you get in your stomach when you’re going to get hauled off to the principal’s office ‘cause you’ve done something wrong.”
Jim said, “We lost something that meant something to the family, not from a monetary value point of view.”
Jim and Melisse moved on. They had no other choice. But fortunately for them there’s a little something called fate.
Heather Langley is a jewelry-maker in Birmingham, Alabama. She said this past summer a customer told her about a ring. “He found it at Mount Bachelor in Bend, Oregon in ’91 or ’92,” Heather explained. “He worked there at the time.”
Armed with that little bit of information, plus some first names engraved on the inside of the ring, Heather got to work and started making calls. One of those calls was to Samantha Swindler of the Oregonian. She and her team started digging.
“She did a lot of historic research to identify my mother-in-law’s name with Norton, her husband’s name,” Melisse said.
Of course there was a lot more to it but eventually Melisse’s phone rang. Her wedding ring had been found more than 2,000 miles away.
Late last month, Heather flew to Portland to deliver the ring. Melisse said, “It was very emotional, it was more emotional for Heather because she was in it for the whole time.”
“I believe in these kinds of things,” Heather said. “It was absolutely amazing to be a part of it.”
And perhaps even more amazing, Melisse said the ring fits better now than it did all those years ago. “I can’t believe it’s back,” she added.
Melisse said she has become fast friends with Heather. They have so much in common and they’ve been texting every day. They’ll both be on the East Coast over Christmas and plan to spend a few days together.
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