When my wife Phran passed into Spirit we removed the precious rings that she wore for 46 years. Both rings were family heirlooms. The engagement ring was passed down a few generations on my mother’s side of the family, and the wedding band was buried by Phran’s father just before he was taken to a concentration camp. After he was liberated from the camp, a fate not shared by the rest of his family, he later dug up the buried rings. I wear a matching band that was also buried and later retrieved.
My daughter Kori took the rings back to her home, hoping to one day pass them on in our family. A few weeks ago, Kori, my son-in-law, and grandson sold their home and decided to move in with me. Kori and my grandson took a flight, while my son-in-law Matt drove down in a rented moving van with their belongings and two cats. Kori decided not to fly with the precious rings as she reasoned that they would be safer with her husband. She distinctly remembered putting them in a plastic baggie and then in a tote bag that Matt would keep on the front seat with him in the van.
A couple of days after their arrival Kori decided to retrieve the rings. To her horror the rings were no where to be found. She spent the next week in utter despair, unable to eat and suffering mental and physical distress. She traced the next people who rented the same van, hoping that they might have found the baggie in the truck. She mapped out the rest stops that Matt stopped at on the way down, posted in lost and found sites and called pawn shops, all to no avail. Meanwhile, she checked every single box and suitcase that they transported, over and over, and searched outside my home in the hope they somehow fell out of the tote while moving the stuff into the house. All to no avail.
Kori had a personal relationship with two mediums that are Certified by Forever Family Foundation and are also good friends of the family. She sent an email to them both explaining what happened and asked if they had any insights as to fate of the missing rings. Finding lost items does not necessarily fall within the scope of mediumship, but it was worth a shot. Both mediums felt strongly that the rings were not lost and would be found. One medium, who also engages in experimenting with electronic voice phenomena, posed a question to Phran asking if she knew the whereabouts of the rings. She received a reply, which we listened to, that said what sounded like “check the broom” or “check the roof”. Neither appeared to make much sense, as we did not use the broom to sweep anything and found it difficult to imagine how they would wind up on a roof. Meanwhile our other medium friend told Kori that Phran came to her and communicated “you found the rings.” This also appeared to be wrong, as obviously Kori had not found the rings.
After a week of intense searching and now physically and mentally exhausted, Kori sat at the end of her bed one morning and found herself intensely staring into her open closet. She stared at Phran’s sweatshirt that hung among the other clothes and decided to get up and check the pockets. The pockets were empty as expected, but she discovered Phran’s pocketbook lying beneath the sweatshirt. She opened the pocketbook and could not believe what she saw – the missing rings! Kori has no recollection of putting the rings in the pocketbook and cannot imagine that she put them there. She clearly remembers placing them in the tote bag.
The messages from Phran were correct. She did not say “check the broom” or “roof” but check the “room.” Also, the message that the rings were already found was true, as Kori had looked in that same pocketbook before.
The experience was profound on two levels. Obviously finding the treasure and connection to Phran was exhilarating and an enormous relief. However, perhaps even more importantly, Kori knew that she was guided by her mom to find the rings. The reassurance that Phran was still very much around and part of her life was just what she needed.