Turns out, diamonds look like rock salt and broken glass in a Milwaukee winter. I’m on my hands and knees on Wisconsin Avenue, sifting through sidewalk cracks to will back to my possession: a small solitaire diamond that had slipped out of my engagement ring three hours earlier. No luck.
I was in many places between when I had it and when I didn’t — down many flights of stairs in Sensenbrenner Hall to Wisconsin Avenue, skipping through snow on my way to the library and then up to its third floor. Friends and colleagues from stops along the way — and other campus sources of support — help me look. While grateful, of course, I’m mainly worried. My knees hurt, my back hurts, and I’m that combination of panic and sadness that feels like a slow, painful twist in the guts.
It’s July 2003, and I’m on a couch in a steamy third-floor apartment in South Boston. I’m drenched with sweat and am not in the best mood, or even a good one.
A year before, I had started dating Michael, whom I met while waiting tables at a fancy restaurant where we worked during graduate school, me for philosophy and him for English. A few short months later, I moved across the country to Eugene, Oregon, to pursue my Ph.D. We dated from afar, rarely seeing each other but talking on the phone around our course schedules and his serving shifts, which had ticked up recently.
Now on a return visit, I open a box containing a perfect little solitaire stone in a simple gold setting. I find myself saying yes — in both senses of the phrase “find myself.”
Back on Wisconsin Avenue, I’m thinking about that time and all that’s happened since — the doubles Michael secretly worked to afford this stone; our wedding and all who were present, including those who have subsequently passed (our grandmas, his mom, his best friend); the vocation he discovered as an educator at Marquette University High School, my own twisting, rooted paths here at Marquette University; the births of our two beautiful boys.
As the vignettes ebb and flow, I eventually head home and make a Facebook post, as anyone over 40 would do. Resigning myself to the stone being gone, I share a picture of my gem-less ring in my left hand. I conclude my post with this reference to the title character of The Little Prince, whose devotion to a cherished rose only grows stronger across an interplanetary odyssey: “I just keep thinking about the Little Prince and his rose. So many roses in the world, but he had his. And this was mine, just perfect for me, given on a ridiculously hot day on a couch in Boston. UGH.”
Before I fall asleep, I receive a kind email from a university colleague, Maria Cooper. “Good luck — so many fingers crossed,” she says. “I lost mine in my house once after doing laundry. I found it, after a full day of looking, in my living room behind a chair. I have faith!”
I catch a text from Dr. Jennifer Maney, director of the Center for Teaching and Learning: “Hey, it could pop up in the most unlikely place.” That’s sweet, I think, but small chance.
I receive several dozen supportive Facebook comments, including one from a childhood friend in Detroit who mentions trying a black light. I thank her for the suggestion and pretend to sleep.
In fall 2023, Rick Boyd, a teaching instructor in the Physics Department, reached out to the CTL where I now work to talk through some favorite high-impact student learning experiences. His passion for teaching with poison dart frogs and bioluminescent algae — which he sends home with students for after-hours research — is creative and life-giving.
Somewhere around 3 a.m. the night of the lost diamond, I send Rick an email, asking if he might have a black light. A few hours later, he replies: “Oh my! Indeed, I do have some small blacklight flashlights! I use them to show off my Boana frogs and my axolotls that fluoresce bright green. … Not all diamonds fluoresce, and ideally it shows best when in a darkened room, but it is worth a try!” I had to chuckle: Even from his email I am learning, but his reply concludes with regrets that he’ll be away the next day conducting research off campus.
I ready my kids for school and head to campus on exactly zero sleep. I feel disembodied in a Cartesian way. Still, I park and scope the sidewalk again, retracing my steps with the help of colleagues too many to list, including Courtney Johnson-Paez, administrative assistant for the CTL, who had smartly closed off the center’s suite of rooms from cleaning the day before.
As I give the search one last go, I think of everyone rooting for me and the encouragement they’ve shared:
“I would be searching on all fours without hesitation if I were there … .”
“I was in need of a meditative practice this late afternoon, so I did a very, very slow walk [down Wisconsin]”. . .
“St. Anthony…”
I’m resolving to cut my losses when a FaceTime call buzzes from Courtney. “I think we found it,” she says. I immediately fall to the ground. I cry. My colleague friends hug me. The Little Prince reunites with his rose.
Turns out, Rick drove to campus, delivered black lights to my office, and the CTL team went all detective in the unit — closed the blinds, swept the floor with black lights — and found it … in my office, where it really shouldn’t have been.
I mean, really. Already realizing I had lost the stone, I had only stopped in my office briefly to check my bag. All I can think is that the stone somehow clung to some part of me as I trekked down three flights of stairs in Sensenbrenner to Wisconsin Avenue to the third floor of the library — including a stretch literally skipping through snow — only to drop RIGHT THERE. What are the odds?
Infinitesimally small, like the odds of the Little Prince making it back to his planet to save his rose, or the pilot fixing his plane and leaving the Sahara.
What are the odds? Infinitesimally small, like the odds of the Little Prince making it back to his planet to save his rose, or the pilot fixing his plane and leaving the Sahara.
I update Facebook with a picture — the diamond in my palm.
The outpouring of love was swift and effusive: “I was praying for a miracle, and you got it”… “It’s heartwarming to see a community come together to make this happen”… “Now that stone symbolizes multiple kinds of love”… “This story needs to be featured on our local news”… “Thanks to Rick and St. Anthony!”
And so on. I go to bed and sleep.
I am now writing this reflection in a stone tipi chapel at a retreat sponsored by Marquette’s Office of Mission and Ministry and the CTL in what can only be described as uncannily good timing, given the treasure hunt a few days ago. The wind is fierce; the stone is ice; my hands are semi-frozen.
I knew I had to write this down. This morning, Rev. Jim Pribek, S.J., retreat co-leader and assistant vice president for mission and ministry, reminded us of two chief modes of St. Ignatius — the pilgrim side and the scholarly side. This writing retreat, he said, honors the work of the scholar, that interior Ignatius in us.
So, I am sitting here wondering: How many people does it take to find a diamond?
There are many facets through which to answer this question: We could say a few, the clear heroes of this story. We could add the colleagues who physically helped search, or all those who shared encouraging comments through social media, texts and emails. But as I sit here in this sacred space and think about how deep and wide the scope really is —I mean really is — I might also say that it also takes the Little Prince and the pilot, St. Ignatius, and all who have ever searched, been desperate and not given up, and who need to believe that meaning is made through our profound connections to one another. The stone in my ring now radiates these connections and is more brilliant for it. The stone in this chapel provides a space for remembrance, and for the witnessing that is writing something down.
And to this — all of this — I find myself saying yes.
