Gorges Carrera Y Carrera 18kt Gold Diamond Ring
On October 7, 1996, among my many valuables stolen by Dawn McSweeney was my designer original Carrera Y Carrera gold and diamond ring - so treasured that it was never worn and was still in its original packet.
When I bought the Carrera Y Carrera ring, I was grieving the death of my husband, I was fighting breast cancer and I was living on welfare.
When I saw that ring in the window of La Maison d'Or, it took my breath away. It was the first thing I had seen that made me feel like living again. It was about $3,000.00 and I was living on cheese sandwiches and in shelters. But that ring made me want to live.
So I put the ring on my VISA card.
I never wore the Carrera Y Carrera ring. I kept it hidden with my other valuable jewellery among my boxes and bags and cases in my storage room in my mother's house - the safest place in the world, I thought - my parents' home.
My parents never left the house empty. My father would go for the groceries. My mother never went out. And there was Kelly, my father's pet, who barked whenever anyone even dared to pass near the house.
No one came to the house. No friends. And the only family that came to my parents' house was Dawn McSweeney and her mother, my sister, Debbie, and her father, Ed McSweeney - and Dawn's boyfriends.
I thought it was the safest place to keep my most precious valuables. I was too sick to think of any alternatives. I even took my best rings and gold bracelets out of my safety deposit box at my bank and hid them in the house because you can't look at your jewellery when it is in the bank. At least I could see my precious belongings in my mother's house.
I never dreamed that I was in such danger. I believed Dawn would pilfer, but I had no idea that I was going to be attacked and that the police I expected to rescue me would turn over my life's belongings to the thief !
And I paid my VISA bill - $50.00 a month - month after month - year after year. I paid a heavy interest - and the capital never went down - but I hoped for better times. That was why I never sold my jewellery. I loved it and I hoped to live to enjoy it. It gave me hope - the will to live. A lovely light at the end of the tunnel.
I paid and I paid - thousands of dollars over the years - even after the ring was stolen. I was sick, I was unemployed, I was grieving, I was scared, but I paid.
A teller at my bank asked why I didn't just declare bankruptcy or just stop paying VISA.
Because VISA was not responsible for my troubles.
VISA was not responsible for the robbery.
Dawn McSweeney robbed me. Not VISA.
It was a matter of honour.
And that is why I fight night and day for the return of my belongings.
Because every one of them has special meaning to me and they are mine.
THERE WILL BE NO PEACE WITHOUT JUSTICE
