The New York Times includes memories of lost rings, now and then.
Erwin R. Tiongson writes (excerpt):
I have worn my wedding ring every single day since my wedding more than seven years ago. I had never misplaced it before. But there I was staring at my bare finger. I noticed the indentation left by the ring, like a phantom band, and the skin tone of this narrow groove, a shade paler than the rest. I felt guilty, as though I had committed an act of infidelity. I imagined my wife’s quiet disappointment; there is nothing in the world quite like it. My hand grew heavy.
I wondered whether I, or someone else, would eventually find my ring. Would I be able to claim it? I regretted that my wife and I had never etched our initials into our rings. After we were married, a jeweler told us that it would take about five weeks to etch our names into our bands, and we thought that seemed too long to be ringless.