Photo: Irvine Police Department/Facebook
David Eaton lost his wife 13 years ago, but the widower has held on tight to the custom-made wedding ring he wore when he married her each day since.
“When you marry someone and you have a house, they turn on the light for you so you know where home is. I put that stone in the castle’s window to shine like a light so that I can always find my way home,” Eaton said, according to police.
So when the 89-year-old lost the precious heirloom while running errands in June, he was understandably devastated.
He’d undergone treatment for cancer and lost a good deal of weight, allowing the special ring to slip right off his finger, ABC affiliateKFSNreported.
In order to track it down, Eaton visited local businesses, hoping someone had found it, but had no luck, and eventually called the Irvine Police Department for help finding Gabriela Hebin, the jeweler who’d made the ring back in 1987, when Eaton and his wife Babette had married, police said.
Enter Officer Brian Smith.
Smith “knew immediately that he had to help” upon learning the story, and soon tracked down Hebin on the internet, police said.
“I could tell how important it was to him, and I could tell that he really missed it,” Smith told KFSN.
Irvine Police Department/Facebook
Though she now lives in Florida, Hebin was headed to Southern California soon, and was willing to bring with her the ring’s original mold, which she still had in storage.
She no longer worked as a jeweler and was unable to craft the ring for Eaton, but Smith took the mold to local jewelry store owner Harry Mardirossian and his daughter Careen, who own MacTavish Jewelers in Irvine, police said.
Smith brought Eaton into the store on Feb. 4, telling him there was a chance Mardirossian might be able to recreate the ring.
What he didn’t know was that the ring was already made, something he soon learned as Mardirossian whipped out a ring box and surprised him with the special gift.
“David was speechless. He said it looked exactly like his ring, but was a little surprised at how it all happened,” police wrote.
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The ring was missing the diamond stone to top it off, but police said Eaton and Mardirossian will work together to find the perfect gem.
MacTavish Jewelers was more than happy to get in on the surprise for Eaton, and thanked the Irvine Police Department onFacebookfor allowing them the opportunity.
source: people.com
