I may be at the point to talk about this now.

One thing about me is I do not talk about my mom much, maybe in this blog, as it has become a journal and safe space for me. However, in real life, it’s almost as if she never existed.

Flash forward to me being married and gaining the best mother-in-law in the land. When I was single, I prayed for not only my future husband, but also my future in-laws because you can’t have one without the other. Strife and drama cause me intestinal distress, so praying to get along with my in-laws was just as important to me as getting married at all. All that to say, I am now at the point in my life where I told Ryan his mom is now like my mom. I can call her about anything and talk to her about issues. While visiting her house one day, she told me, “You don’t talk about your mom.” I responded, “No, I don’t”, smiled, and left it at that.

We both moved on.

I told my dad about this, and he cackled and added, “And I won’t start now.” When I thought about this and told my mother-in-law, she laughed as well. There is a moat around my heart, but because she didn’t push me on it and told me she’d like to know about her and my relationship with her, it caused me to open up little by little.

There is a point to this buildup.

I’ve been in this truck and on the road for two years and have not lost anything. You know what’s coming, don’t you? “Until”.

I may not talk about my mom, but I confiscated her earrings and wore them almost daily. Ryan bought me dupes to take on our trip, and I did. However, I became increasingly more comfortable wearing the earrings in the truck. Plus, I never lost anything.

Until.

I stopped at the Texas welcome center on I-20 on the border of Louisiana and Texas, heading west, got out of the truck, and heard a faint ‘ting’. I didn’t think much of it then, so I went to the bathroom, stretched my legs, and took off on the road.

About 200 miles down the road, I scratched my ear and remembered I put on earrings that morning. I hurried to grab my other ear to check.

Sure enough, the earring was missing. That faint ting I heard must have been the earring hitting the ground. It was too late to turn around. We had a load and were hours away.

When Ryan woke up later, the event came up. At first, he was emotionally angry, knowing the weight of what had just happened. “I told you not to wear them in the truck. That is why I bought you the other ones.”

That’s not helpful right now, is it?

I know.

We tore the truck apart… just in case. It wasn’t there.

I had to experience the emotions, but I also knew they were just “things.” It wouldn’t bring my mom back, and recognizing an idol is how you react when it’s taken away. I was struggling with so many things at once and only allowed myself to be sad that night. After all, King David only cried for a night when his son died. Life had to move on. If I were meant to have the earrings, I would find them when we returned to this rest area.

However, I texted my mother-in-law, saying, “I lost my mom’s earring.” She immediately knew the weight of what was going on and talked me down from the ledge. In short, she said, “But you wore them. You didn’t keep them in a box. ” They traveled with me around the country, and I loved them and proudly wore them.

Besides becoming a therapeutic dumping ground, the real point of this post is my sweet husband.

He went on a quest to find me a matching pair of earrings. Would they be my mom’s? No. But he found a very similar-looking pair on Amazon (I think) that would at least be good hoops.

We just came off home time out of Louisiana and had a load heading west on I-20. I wasn’t paying much attention to my surroundings until we arrived at the border of Texas. 

I said, “Ryan! This is it! This is the rest area.”

He pulled into the rest area and was on a mission. We both searched the parking lot. We went around every semi and RV parked and even had someone ask if we lost something. “Yes, months ago.” Was it a long shot? Yes. Did I really expect to find it? Yes, but no. I haven’t given up hope. Am I delusional? Maybe. It would be one heck of a story if God allows me to find it. After all, he knows where it is.

While I wish this post had a different ending, it does not. This post’s purpose was to recognize the incredible, thoughtful, kind, perfect husband God gifted to me. 

Without even asking, but only saying, “This is it,” he stopped the semi truck and walked every square inch of a parking lot for me, with a flashlight and everything … in broad daylight. 

This job is hard, and working day and night takes a toll sometimes. We have goals and are motivated to reach them (by God’s grace, of course). However, I married the best man in the entire world. When I told my dad this, he said, “Now, remember that when things get tough.”

These aren’t the earrings, but it would’ve been epic. This was after we drove 7,000 miles one week and wondered why we were tired.