There was a day, in the nineties, when
wearing big gold chains didn’t mean that you were a rap star or an old single
dude thinking he is hip. It was the thing everyone did.
Times and styles change, so I don’t
often wear yellow-gold anymore, but I am old enough to say that it once was all
I wore. Today, I was in a yellow-gold sort of mood. That usually entails me
wearing one of my grandmother’s old rings, finding my gold earrings, and adorning
my gold bracelet (a gift from our dog Teddy). Yes, my dog gave me a present.
I’ll explain later.
As I clasped the bracelet onto my
wrist, I thought back to years ago and a lesson taught to my youngest son.
When he was about six years old, I had
taken him with me on a shopping trip. I was bargain hunting, not something that
a six-year-old boy wants to do. To occupy himself, he pushed his way into the
center of the round racks of clothing where I flipped through looking for the
deal of the century. This activity seemed harmless enough. As we moved to our
third rack and he dived to the center, he quickly emerged saying, “Look mommy, look
what I found!”
His small hand produced a nice
looking gold chain. I took a look at his treasure. At first, I thought it might
be a fake, but with closer inspection I was able to see the 14K stamp on the
clasp. The necklace was heavy, and I knew that the price of gold was at an
all-time high. His find was valuable.
His big blue eyes looked up at me
and said, “Can we keep it?”
I thought for a minute. There was
the old saying, ‘Finders keepers, losers weepers,’ and really there would be
nothing wrong with our taking the item home. I reasoned that if I found a
twenty-dollar bill in a parking lot, I wouldn’t try and find its owner. I
looked at his innocent face and decided this was one of those teachable
moments. I had to show him how to do the better thing.
I explained, “Someone lost this, and
they might come back for it. Come with me and we will find the manager.”
When the manager met us at the
service desk, I told her about his finding the necklace. I asked her to keep
our name and number, and if no one claimed it in a week we would come back for
it.
The smiles on the face of the
manager and her co-worker instantly told me that we would never see that gold
chain again. I wanted a do over. I should have given them our phone number and said
we had found a jewelry item, and they could have the owner call and describe it,
but it was too late. As my son and I went back the next week, my suspicions
were confirmed. The manager told us that ‘someone’ had claimed the chain.
I talked to my son and said, “We did
the right thing turning it in.” He got in the car and said, “I wanted to give
it to you, mommy.”
As we pulled into our driveway our
fuzzy little dog, Teddy, came to greet us. He always had something in his mouth,
sometimes a pinecone, sometimes a stick, but always something. I reached down
to pet him and noticed something shiny in grass. I picked up a thick, gold
bracelet and showed it to my son. “Look Bubby, I think Teddy brought me a
bracelet to replace the necklace. He must have found it in his neighborhood
ramblings and brought it home.”
I put the bracelet on while both Teddy and my son smiled.
I’m not sure what my son learned
from the way we handled his finding the necklace; he probably learned that
people are dishonest and not to trust. I learned that sometimes God sees
dishonesty and uses a little fuzzy dog to overcome it. Years after Teddy’s
passing, I still enjoy his Mother’s Day present to me.
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