On my 16th birthday my beloved grandmother gave me a ring.  It was a simple, and in todays standards, very inexpensive ring but to me it was worth EVERYTHING.  It was round with dainty scallops around the edges and my initials engraved in the center.  I slipped it on my finger and it stayed there for nearly 20 years.  I NEVER took this ring off.  Several years after her passing I spent Christmas with my parents.  While sitting in the living room one evening talking I reached to twirl the ring on my finger as I always did when I was thinking about grandma and it was GONE.  My family and I moved everything in their house trying to find it.  We drove back to their place of business (they owned a laundry mat) and looked in and behind all the washers/dryers, searched the parking lot, drove down streets I had been on that day... No Luck.  I was literally heart broken.  I felt as though I had lost her all over again.  For a Christmas gift my family bought me a beautiful birthstone necklace and a few years later had a ring special made to look similar but yet different for me so I could be reminded of my special gift from grandma and also from them.  I walked away from this experience understanding several things.  First, how much my family truly loved me and understood my pain.  Hours spent in the middle of the nite looking for something that really had no special attachment to them except that it meant so much to me.  Secondly, I have learned that the bond I had with my grandmother was not formed in the wearing of that ring but of the love, hugs, encouragement, support and oh yes the memories she gave me.  I will have those always, NEVER to be lost.  And last of all I learned to check that my rings have not become thin and weak from so much wear!!!