You never really realize how important something really is until you no longer have it. In my life, I have experienced losing something dear to me numerous times. The most tragic to me, losing my mom five years ago, and the more recent loss just a few months back, a ring my mom had given me. It was a symbol of remembrance. Something she had given me on Christmas, a month before she had passed away.
Irreplaceable.


As I pulled into my driveway after a long day of school and track practice, I finally felt relieved. I could go finish my homework, then go to bed. The day seemed like forever. Like every class I went to was a bit longer then the last. The frigid winter air shortened my breath as I ran inside to escape the cold. I dashed up the stairs to my room and whipped my bag across the floor. Finally, I felt somewhat relieved. Since I always take off all my jewelry before track, I wanted to make sure I remembered to take the accessories I had worn out of my backpack, sooner rather then later. Reaching my hand in the side pocket, I pull out a few rings, a necklace and earrings, but something was missing. I knew exactly what wasn’t there, and my heart dropped. I reach back in the pocket, pulling out everything from bobby pins to broken pens. Nothing. For weeks I looked endlessly for the ring but I couldn’t find it anywhere. I checked every inch of my room, my locker at school, and the lost and found. One month went by. Nothing. Then another. Nothing. By then I started to lose hope. After a third month I just gave up because I had nowhere else to look. Those months went by, and even though the ring was always on my mind, there was nothing I could do about it.


Lying motionless on the hard wood floor, I flash back to five years ago. I remembered my mom slowly letting go. I remembered the final words I spoke to her. I remembered the exact moment when she left us, and I remembered everyone saying it’ll be okay. A thousand thoughts flood my mind. It was like my life was flashing before my eyes. I thought about how I was so confused when she died and how it didn’t hit me till a few months later. For months now, I have had this feeling inside that I just couldn’t explain, and the last couple weeks had been especially tough. After losing the “forget me knot” ring my mom had gotten me, I felt guilty and also changed in a way. Not the good kind of changed though. I’m at that time in my life where I’m supposed to be finding who I am, but instead, I felt like I was losing sight of who I was and who I could be. Losing a ring isn’t a big deal to most people, so when I would freak out about finding it, I would be told that it wasn’t a big deal and to calm down. That just added to the stress, and increased my already high anxiety. Nobody knew the reason why I would worry so much about something so small. I never really talked about it much to anyone, even family or others who were close to me, so how was anyone supposed to know the importance of it. As I lay on the floor, I thought about all those things and I came to the conclusion that I was unhappy.
The only thing I wanted to do in that moment was find the ring.
I turn my head to the left, having a perfect view of all the dust under my bed, not expecting to find any thing. I thought for a second, “What if my ring was under here?” My eyes scanned the floor and then came to a halt. The ring that I had been looking for, for months, was right there. Before I grabbed it, I burst out in to tears. I don’t know why, but I did, and something changed in me right there.


When my mom passed away it was just my dad, brother and I, so the feeling of loneliness was constant, but there was nothing I could really do. There was a different vibe in my house and it was obvious that something was missing. My dad had always wanted me to try talking to someone, just to get my thoughts and feelings out. I never could though. I could never vocalize what I felt, no matter how hard I tried. I don’t know if it was the fact that I was so hurt I couldn’t talk, or if it was just that I didn’t want to. It’s almost like I was mentally torturing myself because I didn’t even try to do anything about it. I willingly suffered silently. Eventually, during my junior year I started talking to a therapist, but I still didn’t’ feel better. She told me I was depressed. Like I wasn’t already aware. So, I thought it would be better to maybe try another approach instead of paying to talk to someone who would just state the obvious.
I think part of the reason why I finally took action on my pursuit of happiness was because of a retreat I went on. It made me realize things about myself that I didn’t know before. At the retreat, people, called witnesses, talked about the obstacles they had faced at one point in their life, and they all seemed to be relieved after, like a weight had been lifted off of them. I wanted that. It seemed like it was exactly what I needed, almost like it was closure or something. I knew talking in front of people would be hard but I thought it could help, so I decided to talk to the person who helped with the witnesses. That’s one decision that could be life changing to me, but I wouldn’t know until after I tried. That’s the scary part to me. What if I feel worse after? Telling people about things I’ve been through, totally putting myself out there in hopes of having some closure. I was unsure of what I wanted. That seemed to be an everyday problem of mine, not knowing what I wanted. Whether it was something small like picking out an outfit for school or something like being a witness at a retreat, I was always unsure.
That was before I found the ring. Before I had a final answer. I picked up the ring, wiped my tears away, stood up, and finally made a decision that should have been made much earlier. I was going to end this internal battle that I was trying to fight alone. All I needed was a sign that my mom was there. That’s all I really wanted and I finally got it.
It took me almost five years to realize something so simple. I was lucky to have a mom that I did, and it was tragic that she was taken out of this world at such a young age, but there’s nothing I could do to change that. I was told, “You are the one who creates your own happiness”. It’s true, and I didn’t realize it till now because I was still feeling sorry for myself for the wrong reasons, years later. I needed pick myself back up and make myself happy. I started to do more things for myself and open up a little more to people who care about me. I let go of the sad thoughts I had before and I felt free.
I put my ring back on and stared at it for a while. The only thing that came to mind was my mom. I felt something that I hadn’t felt in a few months. A change. This time, a good change, because it was finally my decision. And I decided to be happy.