SEATTLE -- Susan Hutchins has been wishing and hoping to find her wedding ring. But the reunion, when it finally came, proved bittersweet.

Susan and John Hutchins are known around the Seattle area for their community involvement. John spent countless holiday seasons dressing up as Santa and greeting children aboard the Argosy Christmas Ship as well as at Nordstrom.

"John was kind of an icon there at the original Frederick and Nelson," said Paul Burns.

To Susan, John's iconic status came as no surprise.

"Well, I married him because he was special," she said.

But what did catch the Hutchins off-guard came with age. Illness and hard times hit both John and Susan.

Earlier this year, John began his final battle against cancer. Susan, also sick, found herself in the hospital.

With medical bills mounting, Susan had no choice but to pawn her beloved wedding ring.

When her stepdaughter found out what Susan had given up, she could not sit still.

"She held her hand up and said 'even my ring is gone.' At that point, I just lost it," said Ginny Whited. "And I got to thinking, 'if I could do anything for her, it would be to get her ring back."'

Ginny Whited enlisted the help of the Problem Solvers. KOMO News visited Pawn X-Change, but the ring was not for sale. But we did manage to track down Marianne Bradbury, Susan's friend whom she had sent to the pawn shop.

"She had told me she needed this amount of money and to try to get it out of the other rings, but if all else fails, hock her wedding ring also," Bradbury said.

Finally, with Bradbury's signature, KOMO News bought back the wedding band, thanks to a kind-hearted KOMO viewer who offered to anonymously pay for it.

We had found the ring, but it had been damaged.

Then came along Seattle jeweler Paul Burns, who offered to help after hearing about the ring.

"We're going to secure it (the stone) in there, as though the day it was brand new," he said.

After it was fixed and polished, Susan was reunited with her ring.

At the sight of the symbolic gem she once gave up, Susan could not help but cry out.

"I think it's beautiful!" she said.

Susan said before she pawned it, she told her husband it was just stuff, that her love for him was still very much intact.

"I was married to him whether I had it or not," she said, "but now it's a little more of him."

And to Susan, a little more of John means a lot, especially now. John succumbed to cancer just before Christmas.

"This is really remarkable and I have to say thank you, that's all I can say is thank you from the bottom of my heart," Susan said.

"I never thought I could get it back and I'm so thankful," said Whited.

Whited calls the return of the ring a true Christmas miracle.

"And I think it just spreads goodwill and it made other people's Christmases. It certainly made my Christmas," she said.