Chris Valles had admired the beautiful filigree rings of the Victorian era, so 24 years ago, she and her husband-to-be, Robert Heath, searched jewelry and antique stores all over Honolulu.

"We couldn't find one that even came close to what I wanted," she recalled.

Heath asked a jeweler, a former girlfriend, to make him one for Valles.

A few days before the wedding, a package arrived, and while what it held wasn't what Valles expected, "It was, and still is, the most amazing ring I have ever seen, and it was a perfect fit."

The gold band's design looks abstract at first, "but when you study it for a while, you begin to see shapes," she wrote. "People have spotted different things in the design. I think they see things that mean something to them."

Visible are two hearts. Valles sees two figures being joined by a mermaid, but Heath thinks he sees a hawk.

"She said she hoped that we would see what we needed to see in the ring," Valles wrote.