Digging for diamonds

Do you ever find yourself looking for the bright spots in each day? Right after my husband passed away, I was hard-pressed to find any glimmers of light. A few months in and I started looking for them. I like to call this “digging for diamonds”. Looking everywhere for even the tiniest thing that made me smile or brought me joy.

Have you ever dug for diamonds? Figuratively I think we all try to find the joy in the day-to-day. But when you are in the throes of grief you can become blind to the blessings.

Joe & I took a trip to southwest Arkansas many years ago to literally dig for diamonds with his brother and his wife. Traveling with Jack & Lori didn’t happen often, but I always looked forward to those escapes. Any trip with the Pike brothers was guaranteed to be a good time and this was no different. First stop, once we arrived in Murfreesboro, was the Piggly Wiggly grocery store. We needed food of course, to stock the cabin we would be staying in. But the priority was beer. By now you know beer was a staple in my Joe’s life. Well, imagine our surprise when we learned we were in a dry county! No beer or alcohol to be found.

Even more ironic was the fact that we were in Pike County.

Digging for diamonds sounds like a fun-filled adventure. I wish that were true. Imagine sitting in a giant sandbox, only the sand is dirt. Acres and acres of dirt. You dig up a five-gallon bucket’s worth of dirt and sift it through a handheld sieve at a wash station filled with water, one bucket at a time. For hours, and hours, and hours. It was quite cold in Arkansas that spring.

By the end of the day, we were frozen, dirty, tired and unsuccessful. But that trip was still a bright spot! I don’t think any of us really enjoyed the process of digging for diamonds, but the time we spent together certainly made up for it.

Most of the bright spots in our lives typically don’t have anything to do with expensive vacations or elaborate parties. The memories we hold on to are usually the simple things that have happened.

Like time spent together on a trip to a dry county in Arkansas with a bunch of beer drinkers.

I don’t have to dig for those diamonds like I used to. Thankfully the fog of grief has lifted, and those gems reveal themselves regularly now.