When Chris Ramirez lost his diamond wedding ring on a Fort Lauderdale beach, he must have thought his chances of finding it were zero to one.
“The water was a little choppy, so I decided to take my ring off, and I put it in the diaper bag,” Ramirez told FOX 4 News in an interview. “While moving from where we were sitting to back to the resort, the ring somehow fell out. It ended up in the sand.”
If finding a lost ring in the house is difficult, imagine having to look for one on a beach. Despite his slim chances, Ramirez’s instinct told him to call the resort near the beach just to check whether anyone had turned over the ring to the lost-and-found department.
Calling the beach was a long shot, but little did Ramirez know that the first of several coincidences that would bring his wedding ring back to him was about to occur.
“They said they hadn’t received anything. Then right before we hung up, the lady said, ‘Well, actually, there is someone who found a ring at the beach,'” Ramirez said.
Charlotte Duffey was that someone. She and her daughter had been on the same beach in Florida when they saw something glisten in the sun.
“I picked it up and told my daughter, ‘Oh, my God, this is a wedding ring. I wonder if I can find who this belongs to,'” Duffey related.
Duffey has been married for almost 40 years, so the value and sentiment surrounding the ring were not lost on her.
Even though her daughter didn’t think she would be able to figure out who it belonged to, Duffey was determined to reunite the ring with its owner. She let the resort know she had found a ring and provided her information so the owner could reach her.
Duffey had planned to mail the ring back to whoever provided an accurate description of the ring along with a photo that proved the ring was theirs, according to FOX 4.
But when Ramirez reached out to Duffey and provided a photo proving he was the ring’s owner, a second coincidence came to light: Duffey revealed she lived in Mansfield, a North Texas city just 25 miles from Ramirez’s home city of Dallas.
Duffey’s daughter, LaTosha, was certainly surprised.
“I was shocked,” she said. “This is just another lesson that my mom has taught me in life. It did work out, and then for them to be here in Dallas, I felt like it was God.”
Ramirez said it felt good to know there are still honest people like Duffey in the world, adding that she could have easily kept the ring for herself after finding it. Marissa, Ramirez’s wife, echoed her husband’s sentiment.
“It makes me feel good that there [are] still some good people in the world, especially in the world that we live in now,” Marissa said.