By Mark Squibb | Sept. 3, 2020
While watching a car renovation show with her husband, a piece of jewellery that Brenda Chidley had once found along a popular portion of the East Coast trail was perhaps the furthest thing from her mind.
Until she saw a nearly identical piece on the screen.
“He called me in to see this car that a man had put in the garage, but he had passed away before he got to pick it up,” said Chidley.
And so, the son on the car show went to pick up his deceased father’s renovated rig from the garage.
But, he wasn’t alone.
“’Well Dad, this is your ride home in your new car,’ said the son. And he hung a chain up on the rear-view mirror, identical to the one I’d found. Well, I was floored,” said Chidley.
“I said, ‘My God, that’s identical to the chain I found. I got the cold shivers and everything.”
Chidley said she’s since learned of a family member who had a spouse with a similar pendent, containing the ashes of a deceased family member.
“Honest to God, I was dumbfounded.”
She found the pendent some time back while out for a walk with her grandchildren.
“I happened to look down and I saw it on the side of the road,” Chidley explained, noting that it was half covered by gravel and may have been there a while.
She put up a flyer locally, but no one claimed it, and so she poked the pendent away in a jewelry box.
“But I didn’t realize what it was until the weekend,” she said.
Chidley added that, to complicate matters, the East Coast Trail draws tourists from all over the province, and the world, and that the person who lost it may not be from here.
“A lot of East Coast trail hikers go out that road, and they park out there, just up from where I found it. It was in the gravel on the side of the road,” she said. “And we’re after seeing people from all over the world out there.”
Now, she just wants to get it back to its rightful owner.
“I wish I could find whoever owns it,” said Chidley. “You feel so bad. It’s obviously a loved one of whoever lost it.”
If you think the piece may be yours, or may belong to someone you know, and can remember when and whereabouts it was misplaced, Chidley can be reached at 363-7671.
