Grandma's Ring

Grandma's Ring

This story is about Sarah Arvilla Clark Turner written by grandson Trent Turner Packham.

When I was a little boy, I spent the summers living with my grandparents on a large river in Michigan. I spent most of my time going on boat rides, playing in the water, making forts in the woods, and going on long walks with my grandparents.

One day, after lunch, my grandma started doing the dishes. She placed her diamond ring in the window above the sink while she did the dishes. She told wonderful stories as everyone helped clear the table and place the dirty dishes in the sink.

When the dishes were done, she said that the garbage cans were full and that we needed to take it to the dump. A large bull-dozer was pushing large piles of garbage around when they arrived. My grandfather took the bags of garbage from the trunk and threw them right in front of the bull-dozer. They watched the heavy machine for a few minutes tear into the sacks smashing the garbage as it drove over the bags.

When they got back to the cabin, my grandma became very upset. She rushed from room to room looking for something. She was crying when she asked if the others had seen her diamond ring. The others hadn’t seen her ring but everyone started looking for it. They looked in the sand where she sat while on the beach. They looked among her paints on the porch. They looked in the boat. They even looked in the window sill near the sink but they could not find the ring.

I remembers walking through the cabin and seeing my grandmother kneeling in prayer asking Heavenly Father for help to find her ring. When she was finished with the prayer, she knelt there quietly for many minutes listening for an answer.

All of the sudden, she opened her eyes, stood up and ordered everyone back into the car. They drove back to the trash dump. On the way she told everyone that Heavenly Father answered her prayers and told her that her ring was inside a paper towel.

When they got to the dump, the bulldozer was gone. There were small fires burning and the large piles of trash were now smashed flat and covered with dirt. How could it be possible to find such a small ring in such a large dump? I remember thinking that the ring would be lost forever as we stepped from the car.

At first my grandma looked to the right, and then to the left as if she were looking for something familiar. Everyone was astonished when she walked right over to a dirty wadded up paper towel and knelt down. She carefully unfolded it and her ring tumbled out into her lap.

She sat there in the smelly trash as she said one more prayer. This time, thanking Heavenly Father for showing her where her ring was.

I hope that we can all have faith in our Heavenly Father like my grandmother did.