The Story Of The Swedish Woman Who Found Her Lost Wedding Ring In A Strange Spot 16 Years Later

We often refer to fruits and vegetables as the jewels of the earth, but we probably wouldn't expect a vegetable to come out of the ground wearing jewels (via BBC). And while plants may be dripping after being watered, they're not usually "dripping" in the metaphorical sense. But that's exactly what happened in the two stories we will discuss here (via BBC).

Vegetables hold a treasure trove of valuable nutrients, minerals, and fibers, but you might find one a bit more priceless if it were wearing a diamond ring, especially a diamond ring lost for over a decade that symbolizes the love between two partners. Two different devastated and heartbroken women — on two completely different continents — found their long-lost wedding rings this way, and you'll never believe how the rings were lost. You'll also never believe how the rings were found, but we'll give you a hint: people had to get their hands dirty.

In 2011, Lena Paahlsson and her family were living on a small farm near Mora, Sweden (via BBC). With all the chores that come with being a farmer, getting your hands a bit dirty is to be expected. What's not to be expected, however, is losing a self-designed, white gold wedding ring with seven diamonds in it. But that's exactly what happened to Paahlsson in 1995, when she took it off while doing some Christmas baking with her daughters. She left it where she could see it on the counter, but when she went to put it back on, it was gone. Her family tore apart the house — literally — even taking up the tiling in the kitchen years later in hopes of finding it.

She had lost all hope when, in 2011, she was picking carrots on her farm. Wrapped perfectly around one carrot was her ring. The family believed it fell into the sink while they were baking that fateful day 16 years prior, and it got mixed in with the vegetable peelings they later composted and fed to their sheep.

The same thing happened to Canadian 84-year-old Mary Grams, who lost her ring while weeding on her family's farm in 2004 (via BBC). She hid what happened from everyone in her family, especially her husband, who later passed away in 2012. She only told her son because she was so embarrassed, and replaced the ring with a cheaper replica. Years later, in 2017, her daughter-in-law pulled a carrot from the ground that was wearing the original ring, just like in Lena Paahlsson's story (via BBC).

Some say carrots symbolize prosperity and abundance (via Brooch Paradise), which in these cases, certainly makes sense, as their pluckers found not only sustenance, but cherished, priceless family heirlooms. Others say carrots represent the ability to make good decisions (via Online College of Biblical Hebrew). Although Grams could not tell her late husband, she wishes she did. But alas, she could still reminisce with her family about the silly misunderstanding. Likewise, Paahlsson was also reunited with the ring her family spent so many years hunting for. So maybe there's something to these symbolic meanings, and these rings were truly meant to be found in the ground.