Amy
Harris would never have spotted a wedding band in the sand of Idaho's
Redfish Lake one August day had her dog been splashing in the water
alongside her, as he almost always does.
One month earlier, Alair Schroeder would never have lost her wedding
band at the lake's dog beach had her brother not been visiting from out
of town with his dog.
Yet those are the conditions connecting the two Idaho women in an almost too-unbelievable-to-believe-it story of lost and found.
READ MORE: NYC Parks Worker Finds Lost Wedding Ring in Trash
Harris, 38, of Nampa, Idaho, was on her family's annual vacation to the
lake's camping grounds the first weekend in August when she spotted the
wedding band at the bottom of the lake.
"We always go to the same area of the dog beach and it was our last day
there, and I was wading out about knee-deep, by myself because for some
reason our dog wouldn't come out with me, looking for rocks and things
for my kids," Harris, a mother of three, told ABCNews.com. "I looked down and saw something shiny, and I figured it was a bolt or something."
"I saw it was a wedding band and I just thought, 'Oh, my gosh, somebody
is so sad,'" she said. "I put myself in that position and thought, 'This
means so much to somebody.'"
Harris showed the ring to Jody, her husband of 12 years, and the couple
carried it back with them to their home in Nampa, where they stored it
in a drawer and posted an ad on Craigslist.
By November, when no one had claimed the ring, Jody Harris called an old
friend, Richard Black, an owner of Ingram's Fine Jewelers, in Idaho
Falls, a town more than four hours away, to see what they should do with
it.
"He called to see what it was worth and to ask how long you hold on to
something like this before you sell it," Harris said. "We had planned to
hold on to it for a year but wondered, What's the next step?"
Black, in turn, asked Harris's husband a very specific question that caught him off-guard.
RELATED: Good Samaritan Finds Man's Lost Wedding Ring
"Richard said, 'Did your wife happen to find this on the dog beach?'" Harris recalled.
Black, they discovered, attends the same church as Alair Schroeder and
Dana, her husband of 38 years. The couple had been visiting Redfish
Lake, as they do every summer, when Schroeder's wedding band fell off as
she waded in the water.
The Schroeders, who could not be reached today by ABCNews.com, had gone to Black's jewelry store to purchase a replacement ring and told him the story of how the ring was lost.
"Richard called and told them, 'Hey, I think I found your ring,'" Harris
said. "Her husband told him [Alair] hasn't stopped screaming since she
found out."
Amy and Jody Harris brought the ring to Black's store when they visited
Idaho Falls for Thanksgiving. The Schroeders were out of town at the
time so the two couples have yet to meet in person but have talked by
phone and Facebook.
"She was like, 'Amy, it's Alair,' and I knew right then who I was
talking to," Harris said of their first phone conversation. "I was so
excited to talk to her and we just started talking about the miracle of
events and how it all took place."
READ MORE: Wedding Ring Found in Salvation Army Donation Kettle
The Schroeders offered Harris a reward for finding such a treasure, but Harris would hear nothing of it.
"They asked us what our finder's fee would be and we said, 'Oh, nothing,
nothing, nothing,'" Harris said. "I just hope that it's good karma if I
ever lose my wedding ring. Besides my children and my husband, my
wedding ring is the next most important thing because it symbolizes a
lot."
"It's a miracle," she said.
Fall TV? That’s so last season. These days, winter TV
is just as jam-packed as fall, with dozens of new shows hitting the
airwaves between now and the end of March. To guide you through the
wilderness (and keep you from watching “Buckwild”), we’ve selected five
new dramas debuting soon that already have us intrigued… and should be
able to tide you over until “Mad Men” and “Game of Thrones” come back,
at least.
