Lost wedding ring found a decade later

WALLINGFORD, Conn. (WTNH) -- More than a decade ago a Wallingford man lost his wedding ring. Months later he lost his wife. Now, he has been reunited with the ring she gave him that day, all those years ago.

A wedding band is so much more than a ring to most, but Bill Renda says it's like a piece of his late wife.

Renda says he's experienced miracles. For him, one happened 16 years ago, when he met Sasha.

"It was a very quick thing, I think I proposed to her at the end of three weeks and 35 days later we were getting married," said Renda. "It was phenomenal, Mrs. Perfect."

They were married four years.

"She had our daughter and she had developed a rare disease, primary pulmonary hypertension," said Renda, "and she was terminal and we knew it, and we were landscaping for the Dow's and we were putting in shrubs."

His wedding band slipped off his finger.

They searched for hours, even using a metal detector, and no luck. Three months later, he lost his wife.

"She died in my arms, and again, you know, you kinda lost the ring, it was like a part of her was gone, Renda said.

Over the 11 years, it plagued Eileen Dow.

"I always thought about the ring, always was in search of it whenever I did any gardening, planting, anything digging anything up," said Dow.

And the rabbits did their own digging.

Every year she tried growing Sunflowers, but they would eat them up.

Last year, the same thing. Shortly after she saw something shiny in the rocks.

"I said 'oh my,' I said 'Bill's ring,'" Dow said.

She called him with the news.

"I said I have something of yours," she said, "and there was silence and he said to me, 'what color?'"

"She told me it was gold and silver and it was the ring," Renda said. "It's like a piece of her came back. You hurt and you're happy all at the same time."

And the very next year, after years of empty flowers beds, there were sunflowers.

"So I believe something magical happened, Sasha, his deceased wife wouldn't let me grow sunflowers, she would have the bunnies dig them up, so I would find the ring," said Dow.

Just like when he met his wife, Renda calls this a miracle.

"To find something she placed on my finger with all the meaning that was behind it, that's huge," he said. "That's huge to anyone."

Due to what happened, he says he's putting the ring in a safe place with his wife's rings, so his daughter will have both to inherit one day.