"We'll find your ring," my husband said. "Don't worry."

Although the drive back to the church seemed to take twice as long, we finally reached the parking lot.

"Now, let's see," Randy murmured, "we were parked over there?"

And before I could manage to unbuckle my seat belt, he had stopped the car, thrown open the door and?

"Here it IS!" my husband shouted triumphantly, scooping the ring off the ground.

If I'd felt like crying tears of consternation before, I felt like sobbing with relief now.

"Happy Valentine's Day," Randy said with a smile. "Hold out your hand."

As he slid the ring onto my finger, however, I noticed HIS hands were shaking. And not just a slight tremor.

I pointed this out to him.

"Yes, well," he said, "it's not every day your wife loses her ring in a parking lot and then you spend the next half hour hoping it didn't get stuck in somebody's tire treads."

I stared at him in disbelief.

Oh, sure. For years I've been under the impression that the man didn't have a nerve in his body - that nothing ever rattled him.

And now this.

Then again, it also means that I have discovered one more reason to admire my husband. Even when he's rattled, he can still think calmly in a crisis.

If only he could teach me to do the same thing.

About The Author

LeAnn R. Ralph is the editor of the Wisconsin Regional Writer (the quarterly publication of the Wisconsin Regional Writers' Assoc.) and is the author of the book, Christmas in Dairyland (True Stories from a Wisconsin Farm) (August 2003). She is working on her next book, Give Me a Home Where the Dairy Cows Roam, which will be available later in 2004. Share the view from Rural Route 2 - http://ruralroute2.com

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