Danielle Wakefield was devastated when she discovered the diamond had fallen out of her ring, the only thing she had from her late father.
Wakefield, an assistant coach for the Anchorage-based Nunaka Valley Little League softball team, flew to Ketchikan for the state softball youth tournament last week, the Ketchikan Daily News reported. Once her plane landed, she got on a ferry.
“By the time I had gotten off the ferry, I felt my ring — and my diamond was gone,” she said. “I couldn’t go back.”
Her mother had been watching a livestream of the game on Facebook Live.
“I said to my friend, ’I lost my diamond. How am I going to tell my mom?” Wakefield said. “And my mom called me and said, ‘You lost your diamond,’ right away. It was weird.”
Her mother suggested she post about the missing diamond on Facebook. She did, and it was widely shared by people in Ketchikan.
She got a message the next day, with someone saying they believed they found her diamond.
It was destiny. Make that Destiny.
Destiny Madewell, who works as a lead Transportation Security Administration officer at Ketchikan International Airport, discovered the diamond during a routine check of the airport and got it back to Wakefield in time for her to catch her flight back to Anchorage.
“I was sent downstairs at the end of the day to double-check and make sure things were closed in our baggage area,” Madewell said. “As I was leaving and walking through the airport baggage claim area, something shiny on the floor caught my eye. I was going to keep walking but decided to look at it closer, and I picked it up, and it turned out to be the diamond.”
She sent Wakefield a message.
“I looked at my phone in the middle of a game, which I’m not supposed to do,” Wakefield said, “And (Madewell) said, ‘Is this yours?’
“I said, ‘It looks like mine, but I don’t know until I try to put it back in my ring,’” Wakefield continued.
They made arrangements to meet, and the diamond was a match.
“She was beyond joy,” Madewell said of Wakefield’s reaction. “Very excited and happy. I don’t think she had much hope that it was going to be found.”
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After confirming the diamond was hers, Wakefield said she looked up and saw two eagles flying overhead. She felt it was a sign from her father, who loved eagles.
“And I was like, that was (him saying), “I gave it back to you,’” Wakefield said.
