December drizzle dripped depressingly, and Carol and Ron looked like they weren’t thrilled about having to come to the jewelry store. When Joanne brought them to the service window, Carol looked sort of hopeful and Ron crossed his arms across his chest.
25 years of working for a living had taken its toll on her wedding set, and they were here to see what could be done to save it. They purchased the yellow gold set at a pawn shop just before they got married. Now it had a paper-thin soldered together shank, and twenty tips that were on their last legs. A couple of the diamonds were loose, and the carved design was nearly worn off.
I used the digital microscope to show them which prongs needed replacing and which could just be retipped. I did my best to soften the impact, but the cost of the repairs was still more than they were prepared to handle.
After some head shaking and quiet discussion, they decided to have the shank replaced, and come back in a few months when they could afford to have the rest of the repairs taken care of.
About an hour later I called Sharon, a customer I met the previous week, about the repair estimates on eight rings she had inherited. Most of them were just being sized to fit her fingers, but a few of them needed more substantial repairs. She was trying to decide if she cared enough about some of them to pay the repair costs.
As we talked about how much sentimental value the jewelry had for her, I mentioned Carol and Ron’s ring story and current repair challenge. Sharon immediately said to cancel the repair of the three rings she cared least about. She wanted to use that money to pay for repairing Carol’s wedding set.
She said not to tell them who paid for the repairs. She had earmarked some money for holiday expenses, and now wanted to use it for something that meant more to Carol and Ron than her inherited rings meant to her.
The next morning our goldsmith proved that an act of generosity can inspire another. He completed the repairs, then donated an extra half hour of his time to recarve the worn and faded original design back into the shoulders of the wedding set.
When Carol came in and I unwrapped her newly repaired brand-new looking wedding set, she looked so shocked I thought I might be in trouble. Her mouth moved like she wanted to say something, and tears started rolling down her cheeks. I told her people really cared about her. She looked at her ring, at me, and around the room as if maybe none of this was real.
She recovered a bit and asked me to thank everyone who had been involved in making this the best Christmas present she could imagine. She walked to the front of the store, still crying and gushing and showing her ring to each person she passed. As she left, Hans, our manager, said to the customer he was showing an oval Tanzanite pendant, “Yeah, this happens all the time. If you do the repairs right, this is how it makes people feel.”