Adviser Lauretta Clough was in the French department’s office in Jimenez Hall during winter break when a dilapidated desk caught her eye. It was crying for a makeover: A drawer was broken, the rubber trimming was hanging off and another desk was attached to it with beastly metal brackets.
She tried to ignore the urge to clean it up, but finally caved in.
Sorting through a typical office mess – papers, books, old files – she saw a piece of unlined paper, folded over and stapled into an envelope. The words “Found in 2123,” were written on the front.
She tore into it, and found a thick gold ring someone had left at the office years ago. “15 AÑOS,” was engraved on it.
“I’ve got to give this back,” she said to herself. “How on earth will I ever give this back?”
SUMMER 1996
Anakarym Nadyr Medina stood at the altar of Miracles of Jesus Christ church in Hyattsville, wearing a pink gown. Her father slipped the 15 AÑOS band onto her ring finger.
She was turning 15, and, according to the culture of her mother’s Dominican Republic and her stepfather’s El Salvador, the date was one revered for every girl.
The ring her stepfather had custom-made in El Salvador symbolized the pact she had with herself, her family and God. She’d remain pure until marriage. Absolutely nothingwould get that band off her finger until an engagement one could replace it.
More than 500 pairs of eyes watched her – those of her brothers, her mother, relatives, acquaintances and people she didn’t even know who’d traveled from Philadelphia, New York, New Jersey, Florida and the Dominican Republic.
“Felicitaciones!”
SPRING 2003
Ana returned to her Spanish literature classroom in the Jimenez Building from a bathroom break. The junior Spanish language and literature major placed the ring on her lap while the lotion on her hands dried. She tuned back into class, and forgot about it.
“Class dismissed,” the professor said, in Spanish about a half hour later. Ana stood quickly to head for her next class, the ring falling silently on the linoleum floor.
JANUARY 2007
In her own, much neater desk in Jimenez Hall, Clough examined the ring – ornate, somewhat boxy.
She speculated it was a class ring, but she needed more hints.
She had spoken French since childhood, and she knew enough Spanish to figure out “años” meant “years.” A quick Google search revealed the concept of quinceañera – a tradition for young Latinas.
There were initials, too: ANM. And the dates 1981 and 1996.
This was a quinceañera ring that belonged to a Latina whose initials were ANM and who was born in 1981. Good clues to start her search.
First, she talked to Spanish advisers and student affairs coordinators. Nothing turned up. In February, she began wearing the ring, loosely, on her middle finger, so she wouldn’t forget about the search. Finally, she contacted the registrar’s office, where the names of students are kept on file long after they graduate.
“I found a student named Alexandra Nunez,” Jackie Vander Velden from the office told her. “Although there is no M in the name, could it be that ‘M’ was a boyfriend? The plot thickens.”
A call was made, but no luck.
“Could it be this girl – this Anakarym Medina?” Vander Velden asked a few days later.
Clough called Ana’s home. “Thank the Lord,” Ana’s mother called out over the phone. “Thank God!”
Meanwhile, Ana, 26, sat in a meeting at the Department of the Interior at Hyattsville, where she was Marines officer. When she returned to her desk, a voicemail awaited on her cell phone.
“Oh my god!” she yipped to her coworkers. “You’ve got to be kidding me! This isn’t possible!”
She’d felt incomplete without it all those years.
“I felt like I broke a pact,” she said. “Even though I have kept myself, and my promise, regardless of that, the fact that the ring was not on my finger just felt wrong.”
Ana had developed many theories after she’d lost the ring and unsuccessfully searched the school, her house and even pawn shops. Someone cleaning the room had probably scooped it up and thrown it away, or taken it for their own, she mused. Or maybe her brothers had sold it, a cruel punishment for her being “mommy’s little favorite.”
But that a stranger discovered the ring and sought its owner for all that time was not in her realm of mind. Yet it certainly was the scenario she was happiest to see come true.
“I’m so blessed,” Ana told Clough. “It’s like a Cinderella story.”
Contact reporter Raquel Christie at christiedbk@gmail.com.
