NEED TO KNOW
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Dana Popham lost her wedding ring in the family bathroom 20 years ago — and never gave up hope it was still there
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During a recent renovation, she filmed the powerful moment she discovered the ring under a cabinet, where she’d long suspected it was stuck
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The TikTok video struck a chord with viewers, symbolizing faith, resilience and a new chapter for her close-knit family
When Dana Popham pressed record on her phone for a TikTok, she had no idea she was about to reunite with a piece of her past she’d quietly mourned for two decades.
Her video, simply captioned “I lost my wedding ring 20 years ago… and today I found it,” quickly went viral as viewers watched her rediscover the symbol of her marriage.
“I have four kids, and at the time they were 7, 6, 2 and 7 months old. So life was just crazy,” Dana tells PEOPLE, recalling the hectic morning she lost her ring in the family bathroom. She remembers searching everywhere, convinced it was somewhere in that room, but as the hours turned to years, the ring seemed to be gone for good.
Still, Dana never let go of a quiet feeling that her ring might have slipped beneath the bathroom cabinet in a spot that seemed impossible to reach.
“All these years I thought there was a 0.00001% chance that it was under that cabinet,” she says, explaining how she once even poked her phone through a tiny gap in the wood, hoping for a glimpse of gold, but nothing turned up, and life moved on.
It wasn’t until a recent renovation that the improbable became possible. “I told my husband, I said, ‘If we tear that cabinet out, I’m setting up a camera just in case that ring is underneath there.’ And that’s exactly how it happened,” Dana shares, still in awe of the moment she captured on video.
Dana Popham
Dana and her wedding ring
As the cabinet came free, there it was: her original wedding ring, nestled in dust and memories, waiting to be found.
Dana describes the moment as overwhelming. “I felt like every ounce of hope that I’ve ever had, I felt it in my gut and in the reality of just all that emotion coming together, it was overwhelming. I was so happy,” she says.
After the initial loss 20 years ago, Dana did what many would do: she improvised. “I immediately went online and just ordered a fake ring. Like, I am married, I have four children, I’m going to order a fake ring. So I did a fake cubic zirconia, whatever,” she says with a laugh. Years later, her husband bought her a new wedding set, but nothing could replace the sentimental value of the original.
“I was 19 years old. He was 21, we were broke. I mean, this ring’s maybe a little less than half a carat. It’s ‘little,’ but it’s so sweet and means so much,” Dana reflects. Even with a newer set, her heart always longed for the ring she chose as a teenager.
The rediscovery comes at a poignant time for Dana and her family. “We will be celebrating 31 years this year. We had our vow renewal last year on the beach,” she shares.
The ring’s return feels like a blessing as her family enters a new chapter: three of her four children are now married, with her youngest preparing for their nuptials later this year, and the house is undergoing a transformation of its own.
“To think about it makes me teary,” Dana admits. “Because now my kids are 27, 26, 23 and 20, and when you raised a family in the same house and we’ve had ups, we’ve had downs. Our family is super close.”
“And so for me, it holds even a special place because that ring was there all along. Even though the ring is a ring, it’s a metal, but still it’s like it was there all along when life was happening all around it,” she adds, reflecting on the decades of family life that unfolded around her lost treasure.
The symbolism isn’t lost on Dana, especially as she and her husband embrace a new season as empty nesters. “There’s a whole season of renewal that’s happening after 31 years of us being married. My kids are out of the nest. It just represents life, the memories, the hard work, and it just seems like God was like, ‘I’m just going to gift this back to you as you and your husband start this next chapter,’ ” she shares.
Dana Popham
Dana and her husband on their wedding day
The viral TikTok resonated with viewers, many of whom reached out with messages of hope and admiration. To Dana, the story was a reminder to stay hopeful.
“This experience has taught me to not to give up. I couldn’t explain the sliver of hope that one day I would find that ring, and I think some of that just has to do with my faith,” she shares.
“I felt like at some point God had promised that one day I would see that ring again, and I did not know how or what or when, but just every time we would do a big clean-out of the house — or we did put our house on the market six years ago and it didn’t sell — and I just always felt like at some point that ring was going to come back to me somehow some way because it never made sense how it just vanished,” she continues.
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Dana Popham
Dana and her husband at their vow renewal
For Dana, the ring is back where it belongs. “I have not taken it off my hand. It is on my hand with my wedding band that my husband bought after. I still have my original wedding band that I would wear. I’m so happy it still fits,” Dana says with a smile.
The experience, she says, feels like another new beginning. “Our life has just been consumed with life and busyness, and so it’s been there, but I think that’s part of the beauty of this new chapter that we’re just starting,” she shares. “It’s just like a renewal. I literally felt like I had just gotten engaged again.”
Read the original article on People
