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STRANGER’S HAPPINESS A stranger’s happiness is
all the reward he needed. The
idea that there is still good in the world really “rings” true for
Kelli Exposito. Today we cover love, marriage,
hope, perseverance, human kindness and generosity; all in one short story. It is Kelli Esposito’s
story and she’s happy to share it with thousands of her neighbors, and
all who read this. To save time, because she’s already told dozens of
people, one at a time, and she’s so excited that she won’t stop
until everybody knows. The story begins on a cold and
windy Sunday at the Lancaster City Park in March of 1995. “We went to
the park and played Frisbee,” said Kelli, a pleasant young woman with
long dark hair and a warm smile. She works as a budget
analyst at Northrop and lives in Lancaster with her husband John,
her two sons and her two stepdaughters. “ We left the park and went
to the mall. I went shoe-shopping at Gottschalks and Mervyn’s. We came
home and I went out and played some basketball with the kids. Then I
came in to give our youngest, he would have been 1 ½ then, his bath. As I was giving him his bath, looked down at my hand and
said, OH my gosh, my ring is gone!” “Well I panicked, I didn’t
say anything to anybody yet, but I ran all over the house looking for it
and went back outside looking for it. I couldn’t find it, and finally
I told my husband and he said it couldn’t be lost; it has to be around
someplace.” The ring was a beautiful
symbol of John and Kelli’s love; a big Marquis diamond engagement ring
surrounded by the wedding band with seven smaller Marquis diamonds above the center
diamond, and seven below it. Dollar-wise
it was worth several thousand, but no amount of money could replace the
ring that John slipped onto Kelli’s finger on that special day 2 ½
years earlier. Kelli was devastated. “I took the next day off of
work and retraced my steps. I looked all over the park; I went to the
mall; I reported it at the stores. No one had seen my ring. I placed an
ad in the local paper and it ran for 10 days but no one called.” Kelli never believed that she
would ever see the ring again. Even so, every day she scoured the
“found” section.” My husband said, “give up, it’s OK, we’ll
get another ring.“ John did buy her another ring
and she wore it with pride, but still she longed for the day that one of
those adds would bring the news she wanted. That day came, and the ad,
stood out to her: “Found, ring Lancaster City Park. ” Her heart racing, she called the number, and a gentleman by the
name of Leonard Nagel answered the phone. He is a retired Gentleman who
belongs to a metal detector’s club called the Antelope Valley Treasure
Hunter’s Society. He lives in Lancaster with his wife Mary. He asked
Kelli a series of questions and after the longest time said, “I think
I found your ring”. The Esposito family, with
their wedding picture in tow as proof, went to the Nagle home to claim
the ring. The ring was found a couple of inches beneath the ground
surface and it was dirty and scuffed, but this does not bother Kelli in
the least. It turns out that Kelli taught
the Nagle’s grandson in a Catechism class at Sacred Heart Church. And
this story is a good lesson to all kids. Leonard Nagle did not ask for a
reward. “All I want is for it to be with the people it belongs
with,“ he said. Kelli, gave him $100.00
anyway. “I think it’s wonderful that someone would do this, ”she
said. “The ring is worth a lot of money and he turned it in.” After three years without it,
Kelli appreciates her wedding ring and what it means more than ever.
She hopes her children will learn a lesson about kindness, and
about the importance of never giving up. And now that she has it back,
Kelli’s never letting go. Sitting in a diner and telling me this
story, she kept glancing down at the ring and touching it with the
fingers of her right hand. She
smiled. “I can not stop looking at it” EDWARD GROTH |