A Central Texas widow is asking for help in finding her missing wedding ring after it slipped off her finger over the weekend.
"Oh my gosh, my ring is gone!"
That's what Pat Armistead said Sunday afternoon after attending church and lunch with family and friends.
"A friend of mine took his metal detector and searched all the way out and around the church, and it has not been found," Pat said.
Pat married her husband Sydney, or Syd, the day after he got out of the Army on Dec. 19, 1970. This past Dec. would have been their 47th wedding anniversary.
"He was proud of that ring... that he was able to give it to me," Pat added.
"I always had a vision of getting married and would hope that that would be mine whenever that time came," Julie Armistead, Pat and Sydney's youngest daughter, said.
Armistead served in Vietnam before earning his degree and becoming one of the first male kindergarten teachers in Killeen ISD. He taught for 27 years.
"He passed away in October. So, it really had special meaning than... since he's gone now," Pat said.
"This ring means a whole lot more now that Dad's gone," Julie added.
Up until his passing, Syd Armistead battled Alzheimer's, and Pat's wedding ring was the last part of him she still had to hold onto.
"This is part of him, and I don't have it now. That's what's sad, you know, that I don't have it to look at. I know it was just a ring, but it was part of him and part of our life," Pat added.
"That's one more thing we're having to say goodbye to, and I just hope that whoever has it will return it because it is one more thing that we have to close that chapter of that book that we don't want to close yet," Julie said.
Pat has also had her fair share of sickness and hard times being diagnosed with two types of breast cancer back in 2013. She had surgery and was cleared, but it came back. She fought it again, and she's been in remission for the past year and a half.
Pat said she depended on her church family at Trinity Baptist Church in Harker Heights to help her through cancer, and Syd's passing and the search for her missing wedding ring have been no different.
"I couldn't have made it without them, and I still can't make it without them. But, they carry me through. They're there for support, and it's the same way since I've lost him," Pat said.
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