Many years ago, when things were going a lot better for me, I bought a diamond ring which was from an estate sale. I paid $400 and had an independent appraisal of $1,200. I treasured that ring and only took it off when I was working doing messy renovations. After I had virtually everything stolen from me in Panama I was glad I was wearing my ring and it didn’t get stolen.<\/p>\n
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After I returned from Panama with virtually nothing the ring was always a reminder of better times and I hoped someday to be out of the mess I was in. Things only got worse for me after I moved to London and the low point was sleeping on an office floor and then ending up in The Mission, the worst place ever to stay in. I had no money and was truly desperate. I had sold off whatever possessions I had, like my pool cue, but I needed money desperately. I was downtown at the welfare office, who had just refused to give me a bus ticket to get back to the shelter, and I saw the sign for the jeweler who bought gold. He offered me a paltry $80 even though I had the appraisal. It was basically “take it or leave it” and I had no choice, so I gave up my ring. It was a symbol of how low I was.<\/p>\n
As I picked myself up; got a job and a place to live and gradually got ahead of myself and could buy more than food, I thought of my ring and wondered if it was still there, two years later. I went to the jeweler and was delighted to see my ring, all shined up. He was asking $300 for the ring he paid $80 for. After some negotiation, he agreed to sell me my own ring for $240. I have been putting money down on it as I could squeeze out a few bucks. Last Friday I managed to pay the remaining balance and get my ring back. I appreciate it more than I ever did and I feel it is a symbol that I am going to have a better life, despite all the things that are not good right now. I look down at the ring and pray someday to be back in my beloved Okanagan with the friends I treasured, maybe sitting on the lake in my boat again. I would have to get my health back and lose the weight I’ve gained, which seem like lofty goals, but somehow having my ring back makes me believe it’s possible.<\/p>\n
Update to the story<\/em>. A girl I was trying to help came to my apartment. While she was supposedly cleaning she stole the ring. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Many years ago, when things were going a lot better for me, I bought a diamond ring which was from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[97,134,135,136],"class_list":["post-1269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspiration","tag-my-life","tag-inspiration","tag-trust","tag-theft"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/garycjones.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/garycjones.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/garycjones.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garycjones.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garycjones.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1269"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/garycjones.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5398,"href":"https:\/\/garycjones.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1269\/revisions\/5398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/garycjones.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garycjones.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garycjones.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}