Once, not too long after her
mother-in-law died, she lost two diamonds in one week. Now, it’s odd enough to
lose one diamond, but two put it into the realm of peculiar. Her earring, a
diamond stud was the first to go. She’d reached up one rainy afternoon after
removing her outer clothing and felt its loss. Only the screw back remained,
tucked behind her ear, clinging madly for its life. She searched frantically,
for it was a diamond of great value, but to no avail. And amidst the tears for
her dear mother-in-law she also grieved for her diamond.
The following morning, as she
reached for the milk in the refrigerator she glanced at her diamond wedding
band. To her eye the row of symmetrically placed stones seemed out of kilter.
It’s just the light she thought. But closer examination revealed a missing
diamond, one of the smaller stones. In its place a set of empty prongs nestled forlornly
among its fellows. It can’t be, she said out loud though she was alone in the
room.
Horrified she sat down at the
kitchen table. She stared deeply into her coffee mug. The light catching the
ripples in the cup reminded her of her missing stones. She began to contemplate
how this could have happened. The impossibility finding the missing diamonds
loomed large before her. The cost of replacing them seemed outrageous. So she
began to pray to the diamond goddess, her only hope.
As her words fell silent, a memory
materialized in her mind, a story told to her by her beloved mother-in-law.
Sometimes the dead need to borrow diamonds from the living in order to bribe
their way into heaven she had said. She remembered her mother-in-law’s colorful
past and suddenly understood.
A few days later, as she was
showering, she stepped on something sharp. A piece of debris she thought as she
lifted her foot thinking to find a small pebble. Amid the water and soap
streaming along the tiles was her missing diamond stud. Astonishment gave way
to gratitude as she joyfully offered a prayer of thanks to the diamond goddess
for returning her earring.
Several days after that remarkable
moment, a glint of light from the kitchen floor caught her eye. Looking down
she saw the tiny diamond from her ring glittering up at her and then she
remembered the rest of the story. Bribes are always found out and the diamonds
are hurled into space where they glimmer among the stars momentarily before
falling back to earth, returned to the person to whom they belonged. And of the
dead who garnered them, they are also thrown from heaven.
Karen Casady©2016
