— Dan Ebenal
A Victoria woman is hoping to be reunited with a symbol of the love of her life in time for Valentine’s Day.
Rhonda Hilton had been married for 40 years when her husband died of cancer in 2012. Not long after moving to Victoria from Ontario last November, Hilton decided to create a memento to ensure her husband was never far from her heart. She had a heart-shaped pendant made from his wedding ring, with a tree of life inside the heart and his birthstone on one of the branches.
But on Jan. 23 Hilton went out for lunch with family members at Bin 4 in Langford before going for a walk at the Colwood Creek dog park.
“I went to my girlfriend’s place in Saanich and she said, ‘Rhonda, your chain.’ I reached to my neck, and nothing,” said Hilton. She reached down her shirt and found the chain for the necklace but the pendant was gone.
“At that point I started crying.”
Hilton rushed back to the restaurant where she had shown the necklace to her family members and retraced her footsteps at the dog park, but with no luck. She put up posters in the area and her daughter’s Facebook post about the lost pendant has received nearly 5,000 shares.
“People I don’t know are getting in touch with me. People offered to go through the park with a metal detector,” said Hilton. “It’s unbelievable the outpouring I’m getting from complete strangers, but I still don’t have my necklace back.”
Hilton even paid a visit to a couple of psychics, one saying they saw the necklace in a pawn shop cabinet and the other claiming someone had put it in a drawer and didn’t know what to do with it.
Hilton is trying to remain optimistic about being reunited with the symbol of her undying love.
“I am doing my best to keep my hope going,” she said.
Anyone who may know the location of the pendant is asked to contact Hilton by email at ontario2bc@outlook.com.