With this Ring

A few years ago I lost my wedding rings. There were four, my engagement ring, my wedding band, my teensy-weensy little sapphire that The Husband got me on my first Mother’s Day and my grandmother’s beautiful antique band that was engraved with her wedding date-exactly 70 years before mine. Four rings that sat on my finger every single day and night for years. I showered in them. I did dishes in them. I stopped wearing them to bed after I almost scratched my cornea one night, but they had a little dish on my dresser where they went every night. I guarded those things with my life. Until one day when it got really hot and I got really swollen. I was outside with two toddlers and a fussy baby. I was, as usual doing too many things at once. I took the rings off (or so I tell myself, I have no recollection of doing it) as my fingers started to get fat and that was the last I saw of them. I still have no idea exactly where they went but I suspect they were placed in the package I was addressing at the time and shipped off with the product returns that were in the envelope.
That finger has been empty for so long now that the married callous and indentation are finally gone. The Husband and I were talking the other night about what might replace the rings. I’ve gone through a succession of fake look-alikes, skinny silver bands and completely opposite cocktail rings-my latest, a giant owl.
My first thought was that nothing can replace them. What I want is to have my old rings back. But should he get me something new, what should it be? I told him I would love whatever it was as long as it was obvious he bought me something that made him think of me. Nothing like setting the bar high huh? Nice wife-lose the rings he works so hard to get you, then demand he not only buy more, but be super-thoughtful about it…again.
It was in that moment that I realized what I really missed. It’s not the rings I want to replicate. It’s the story. I wish I still had the story to tell.
See, The Husband says (to anyone who will listen) that he picked out the engagement ring for a very specific purpose, and even all these years later his reason warms my heart. He tells people:
I didn’t buy the flashiest diamond. I didn’t buy the biggest diamond. I didn’t buy a ring with a whole mess of diamonds that scream for attention. I said to the jeweler, “I want a ring that is exactly like my future wife. You may not notice it when you first walk into a room as it’s not the biggest or boldest, but if it catches the light just so, it’s perfection is blinding.”
Seriously, that’s what he said. Also, that’s what he did. My ring was perfect. Not huge and not attention grabbing right away, but subtly gorgeous and man, when it caught the light…
The point is not the diamond, but the way my then fiance thought of me. Every person should have someone feel that way about them sometimes. It is that story that used to get me through fights and frustrations. It is that story that personally carried me through ugly days and overweight weeks. It is that story that used to make me hold my head just a little higher. When someone feels that way about you, it is hard to shrink away.
I miss my rings because every time I saw them, I heard that story and that is something that can not be replaced.