Describe a time when you lost something very valuable. How did you feel when you finally found it or when you realized it would never be found?

Joanne's SADDEST answer:
I lost a video of my friend on my computer. I was very upset that the only moving picture I had of my friend was gone and that I lost my only fragment of her voice and her laugh. When someone passes away you want to hold on to everything you have because that was the last note, the last picture, the last laugh you will ever share.

Joanne's answer:
When I was in 8th grade, my boyfriend gave me a necklace and matching earrings for my birthday. I knew that they didn't cost a whole heck of a lot, given that we were in 8th grade, but it was the most romantic gift I had ever gotten from a boy up until that point. That same summer, I was on the swimteam (actually, that's how the boyfriend & I met - swimteam) and I used to take off my jewelry at the beach before going swimming. One day, the necklace got lost in the sand. I was disappointed...but more worried that my boyfriend would notice me not wearing his necklace - so I found out where he bought it and I bought another one! In an interesting turn of fate, the boyfriend and I broke up shortly afterwards...but still hung out and sort of talked about getting back together. One afternoon, I was walking with him and some of my friends to a friend's house, and we got into some sort of fight - I don't remember the details except that he was being a jerk....so to get back at him, I took off the necklace and threw it in the bushes, as if to say, "I don't want your stinking necklace". Shortly aftwards (after we made up), I went back to get it and it was nowhere to be found. Then I felt just awful.....until a MONTH later, when I was walking by that same bush with the ex-boyfriend, we decided to look for it one more time - and there it was - my necklace still still on the ground where I had thrown it 4 weeks prior! I was so happy to have it back....though I'm sorry to say that the relationship - and the friendship - with the guy deteriorated a very short time after. Though I did just recently look him up on myspace....he's a lawyer now, married and living in Florida. =P

And the other answers!

1. My mind...it's lost and found so often, I don't worry!

2. I try not to get too attached to stuff. I can't think of losing anything that valuable, but I remember walking out to my car one morning and seeing that someone had stolen my mountain bike that was locked to the bike rack by destroying the bike rack. That was a little depressing, but I basically shrugged it off as one of life's lessons: you never really own anything.

3. Frantic – sick to my stomach.

4. I woke up one morning and had a notion to wear a different ring so I went to my jewelry box and it was gone!! The whole box was just gone. Someone had come into my house when I was at work, went to my bedroom, went behind my little t.v. and just took the whole box. I was absolutely devastated!!! I finally knew what it meant to feel violated. My rings meant the world to me. One of my rings had belonged to my grandmother. It was a platinum ring with two sapphires and a diamond. I used to wear it every time I went to her house. She finally gave it to me when I graduated high school but my mother wouldn't let me have it until I was 21. I had a ring in that box that I designed myself. My graduation ring was in that box. That happened almost 30 years ago and my heart still weeps when I speak of it. I'll never get it back nor the rings in it. It's events like that in my life that I must lean of my faith in the Lord for only He knows who took it and why. And the good book tells us, "Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord" so in other words, God will get them for that. And I must be at peace with that for all I CAN do is pray for serenity for the things I can not change and get on with my life. For I will not cry because they are gone, I will smile because I had them.