A Jewel on Earth is Now a Diamond in the Sky

June 27, 2007

So, I attended the funeral of a former neighbor a few months ago who was the owner of a family jewelry store. His jewelry store sells high quality of jewelry and gives outstanding customer service.

I had seen him just two weeks prior to his death, little did I know our visit that day would be the last time we would talk before his death.

My dad had given a grandmother clock to me twenty years ago when my daughter was twelve months old and the clock was old then. My daughter worked in our neighbor’s jewelry store as an engraver for four years before she moved out of state for college.

I went to his jewelry store and asked if he could repair one of the broken weights in my grandmother clock. Immediately, he evaluated the problem with the clock weight and magically repaired it in a few seconds before my eyes.

I asked him how much I owed him for the repair work. He smiled and said, “Nothing. Glad to do it.” He hugged my neck and as neighbors of 16 years, we reminisced about times gone by.

Little did I know our visit that day would be the last time I would see him alive. I did see something in his eyes that day, although I could not define what I saw then.

On Saturday afternoon when I received the telephone call that he had fallen at home and had been admitted to the hospital, I gasped. When I received the call on Sunday afternoon that his body functions were shutting down, somehow I knew what I had seen that day.

A quote I found in one of Max Lucado’s books holds deep meaning for me now as I reflect on life, “Write your sorrows in the sand and carve your blessings in stone.”

I had the privilege of living beside the jeweler and his family for several years. The abundant friendship blessings my family received as well as countless others were carved permanently in the hyphen on his tombstone. Life’s blessings were represented by the hypen between the year of his birth and the year of his death.

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