Bands of Silver

I am still wearing my wedding rings.

It's not so much because of my reluctance to uncleave as it is that I simply still feel married. I remember the day my sister removed her rings. I asked her why she had finally decided to do so because she had continued to wear them for quite a long time. She said that she just didn't feel married anymore. I don't want to speak for her, but I'm pretty sure that it wasn't a happy feeling -- but more of a remorseful feeling. She had loved being married -- being half of a couple -- being a partner in parenting -- being cleaved unto her husband. I completely understand.

Thus far, nobody has asked me why I'm still wearing mine or to be so bold as to suggest that I should remove them, though I have had a couple people mention Christian dating sites and offer introductions to single, like-aged men. I shuddered. I had been married for half of my life! I have neither felt a need nor a natural pull to move away from my marriage and move-on. I, too, still feel married. Uncleaving with these rings on my hand just isn't going to happen. Besides, they're tight now and very difficult to remove.

We got engaged the summer between David's sophomore and junior years in college. (That is my daughter's age. I cannot imagine her coming home with this news.) David had a little job in the college cafeteria. He did the dishes, I think. He had managed to save a little -- and did get me an engagement ring. It was a little marquis diamond in a unique setting -- in white gold. I loved it. He certainly spent a month's income on it! I was working down in Baltimore, so we had a long-distance relationship. Long distance phone calls cost a good bit back then. There was no email -- no texting. We wrote long letters to each other -- long love letters. I have every single one of his in a pretty box in my attic. I've never re-read any of them, but will some day soon, I think. What a love affair! The angst of separation -- his resulting love songs -- unbelievable joy when reuniting. I called it "pleasure in misery" and he wrote a whole song about that! It was painful to be apart, but the passion and love sent across the miles through those letters and phone calls was pure pleasure. To be so in love is something everyone should experience at least once in their lifetime. I feel quite bereft in this moment, recalling that measurable happiness.

Between the time we got engaged and our wedding day, there was a good bit of drama. My father suffered a pretty serious stroke. I was actually at home the weekend that it happened, thank God. Between my sister and my grandmother, we managed to get him to a safe place and call the ambulance, against his adamant demands that we not do so. Defying him was really difficult -- but with my cajoling and insistence, my sister made the call. A medical emergency was terrifying to us after losing our mother just a couple years prior. Not even a month later, David and I were in a serious car accident. We were on our way to what would be our home to return a moving truck because I had resigned my job in Baltimore to be closer to my father and family following his stroke -- and had moved my furniture straight to that house. Rain turned to ice and we had a head-on collision, landing both of us in the hospital. Different hospitals! as the accident occurred on a county line. There I was, in the ICU, waking to find my father with tears in his eyes looking down at me and my poor sister completely traumatized by the violence of our injuries. Trauma. So much trauma.

My dad gave us an amazing gift. He had removed his own wedding band -- a heavy, shining, platinum ring -- and given it to me to give to David on our wedding day. Inside the ring were two sets of engraving -- first my mother's to my dad -- and then mine to David.

"The wedding ring, that most famous and instantly recognizable symbol of the (hopefully perpetual) joining of a man and a woman as husband and wife in the institution of marriage, has a long, wide spread and mysterious history. The ring is of course a circle and this was the symbol of eternity for the Egyptians as well as many other ancient cultures. They wore it like we do today, on the third finger of the left hand, because of a belief that the vein of that finger directly traveled from the heart. [In more recent history] gold or silver rings were given on occasions, to show all the bridegroom trusted his betrothed with his valuable property ..."  [excerpts from The History of the Wedding Ring – A Recognizable Symbol of Love, by Matt Jacks]

A perpetual joining ... eternity. You don't just remove that symbol from the finger that is connected directly to your heart lightheartedly, you know?

Throughout the years of our marriage, David gave me many more rings. He must have trusted me with his valuable property. I had a diamond, a ruby (surrounded by little diamonds), a sapphire (my birthstone) an amethyst (his birthstone) and another diamond. (These were set in yellow gold, but hey.) The last ring he gave me was a beautiful puzzle ring -- heavy and made of white gold. He had travelled to Cyprus for his sister's wedding and got us matching rings and matching cross necklaces. I wore that ring with my wedding rings until just a couple months ago when my weight gain sadly prevented my wearing it comfortably any longer. I'm trying to recall where I put that ring ... which reminds me of when I agonized over what I had done with his rings when he last was hospitalized.

I received a sum of money from a stock sale through my father's estate a few years ago. I saved it so that I could use it to convert a couple pairs of gemstone earrings to lever-backs, which I would be much more likely to wear. David had given me amethysts for our wedding to match a beautiful necklace his parents had made for the occasion. He also gifted me with a pair of sapphire earrings. I rarely wore these beautiful stones and it troubled me. I had never gotten around to finding a jeweler to handle this for me until just last year. It occurred to me that I was having the same problem with my rings. A diamond had fallen out of my ruby ring, so I had stopped wearing it. The sapphire ring was tight and I only had one finger that they fit anyway, so had been wearing the amethyst ring. I wanted to wear ALL of them -- so I commissioned a local goldsmith to combine them for me. I received a last gift from two dearly loved men -- a beautiful, lasting ring. Perpetual belovedness.

One day in the summer or fall before David died, we removed his rings. I think it was just before I left to take our daughter to college. I just can't remember. It may have been earlier than that. His hands were puffy from steroids, perhaps? It could have been the day I returned home and knew that we had no choice but to go to the hospital -- when his legs were so swollen from the DVT and he was pretty much unable to stand. I recall placing them on the kitchen island, telling him that I would put them in a safe place. The next time I thought to follow-through, they were gone. I asked him if he had moved them -- put them somewhere "safe," but by that time, he couldn't recall even removing them. I was a little panicked. I don't think I looked for them again until some time after he died. The questioned nagged at me frequently, though. I finally remembered -- amidst the fogginess of widow brain -- to check his little containers for the things contained (his little wooden boxes where he kept his jewelry), but I could not locate them. I was grief-stricken. Months later I was looking for a piece of my own jewelry in a drawer of a jewelry box -- and there, in a little bag -- labeled clearly (in case something were to happen to me ... I can't help but operate this way) were his rings. All that time they were safe and sound in MY jewelry box. I had immediately and responsibly taken care of them -- but had absolutely no recollection of doing so. Score one for the Virgo. Huge sigh of relief. What had been lost was found.

This past August we would have had our 25th anniversary. Twenty-five years is a great milestone in any marriage, especially these days -- and one which we never reached. I remember quite clearly our 9th anniversary. It was a month after his diagnosis and our church family got together and planned a wonderful celebration for us -- a horse and carriage ride through old town Fredericksburg, a fancy-schmancy dinner and a night at an historic inn. There was a good chance that it would have been our last. We had 14 more. The year we moved, some people putting together a "Survivors at the Summit" in Snowbird, Utah really wanted David to come do a concert for them. He told them that the requested performance date was our 15th anniversary and that there was no way he could do it. They paid for me to fly-out with him and gifted us with a delightful anniversary dinner. For our 20th, we had a memorable dinner at the Melting Pot in a little private booth. Ooh aah -- with a split of champagne and a souvenir photo in a silver frame. But 25 wasn't to be. It was a particularly painful day for me. I remember that I worked that day -- and when I returned home, a bouquet of perfect pink roses was awaiting me. (One of those amazing random acts of kindness, worth revisiting.)

Another very difficult day was a couple weeks following that anniversary -- the day I delivered my son to college, 350 miles away. The night before his move-in day, we sat in David's parents' living room, visiting as we always do. I can't remember if it was before or after the "nibblies" (requisite for David's father every evening), but his mother got up and left the room for a few minutes -- then returned and seemed a little emotional or nervous or something. She handed me a box and explained that inside was something that her husband had given her on their 25th anniversary -- spent in Williamsburg, just a hop, skip and a jump from David's and my home for over 20 years. It was a beautiful sterling silver bracelet -- very heavy and perfectly-crafted -- and engraved inside, not unlike David's wedding band, indicating that Silver Anniversary that we had been cheated out of. I was totally captured by their loving act -- passing on their own celebratory love to and for us. I was speechless for a few moments -- then simply overcome with gratitude. A band of silver commemorating the anniversary we "should" have celebrated.

I wear these symbols of perpetual, eternal love every day. I still feel married. I'm not ready to put them away, though when I do, I will label them carefully so that their meaning will never be forgotten -- and put them in a very safe place so that they are never lost. I don't want to lose that kind of love. How to move ahead without abandoning such devotion is my challenge. Until that time, these rings will continue to be a part of me -- a constant reminder of being someone's beloved.