Just about this time last year, E and I were at the semi-annual street fair, walking from booth to booth looking at everything and for nothing in particular. I ended up at one of a hundred jewelry booths, and on a front table was a pile of small, simple gold rings in various rustic designs. They looked like they’d been made with precious metal clay, where the clay part is fired away, leaving only the gold. They were inexpensive, so I stopped to pick through them.
Almost immediately, one caught my eye.
It reminded me of two clasped hands, the top one slightly larger than the bottom one. It reminded me of our clasped hands. A was fond of holding hands, of walking hand-in-hand, and when the spirit moved him, which it did often, he’d kiss the back of my hand. It was such a sweet, courtly, romantic gesture. I loved it. I loved holding his hand. I miss it so much. It’s just one of a million things I miss because he is missing.
I didn’t select that ring as much as it selected me, I think. I hadn’t given any thought to “memorial jewelry,” but there it was, and that was my first thought upon seeing it; it was obviously meant to be. So I bought it, put it on my right hand, and there it has stayed nearly continuously since I got it. I only take it off when I take off all my rings, when I’m doing something really messy or likely to wreck them.
I love the ring, but as it turns out, it is probably not pure gold; maybe all the crud in the clay wasn’t burned away. Or maybe it’s brass. Whatever the case, the ring tarnishes easily and frequently. I end up having to polish it up every other day. I don’t mind doing it, but I have to admit, I’m disturbed by it. To me, this ring is a symbol of our love, of our immortal connection. I wear it in his memory and his honor. And I don’t want that symbol being tarnished, literally. Our love shines, bright and clear.
You’d think it’d be a simple matter of getting a different ring that wouldn’t tarnish, but nothing is ever that easy. One of the ways I think we get through this pain is by creating rituals and touchstones to steady us, to reassure us that we will not forget our loved ones, to provide some kind of structure to a life that has just been blown to bits; we create psychic security blankets to get us through the darkest nights of the soul. For me, I couldn’t sleep unless and until I kissed every one of his pictures, and then blew out the candle I lit every night. Now it’s kiss one picture, touch his face on another, and blow out the candle, though I don’t break out in a rash if I do it candle first, kiss second. There are so many other rituals and talismans that I have cobbled together as I’ve tried to cobble together a life without him, including the ring. But the point is, these rituals have helped me get through the worst time of my life. That’s some pretty powerful magic.
And once you’ve imbued a practice or a symbol with that kind of meaning, replacing it becomes complicated. It is no longer just a ring; it’s an icon from your personal initiation and continuing conversation with the Mystery, a conversation I find compelling despite the involuntary introduction and the language barrier. And you cannot thoughtlessly replace an icon of your own creation with something else any more than you can kick the Blessed Virgin out of her grotto and replace her with a Barbie doll.
I had some trouble with the idea of replacing the ring for this reason, though apparently I’ve come far enough that I was willing to entertain the possibility. Voluntary change, I’ve found, can be so hard after everything changes against your will. You dig your heels in and try to avoid anything else changing, despite knowing only too well the futility, the wishful arrogance, inherent in assuming you have any such control. For me, my ability ponder and make a change, in anything, since A died, has been a mile marker for me on this journey. The easier it gets, the more I know I’ve healed. I always stop to celebrate a little, because I remember a time in the not-too-distant past where the change would’ve been unthinkable.
But I did think about this, and the facts are that I don’t like that the ring tarnishes, and that he did not actually give this ring to me. I bought it myself as a symbol, for me. Those of you who have been reading since the beginning know that I have been forced to reckon with the idea of “things,” and the arguable importance of artifact in the archive of love, in the face of having very few “things” to hold on to that belonged to or flowed from him. And the place I arrived at was that if the thing was merely a symbol of him, as it couldn’t be anything else, then one symbol was probably as good as another. I bought myself one ring as a symbol; what difference did it make if I bought myself a different one?
All very logical, no? And yet…I struggled with the decision even as I started shopping for a replacement. I knew it needed to be perfect, or I’d keep what I had. I searched for “clasped hands ring,” and looked at several that were okay, but they didn’t touch me. They were stylized hands that looked more like they were concluding a business deal instead of touching in the easy, intimate way of lovers. They weren’t us.
And then I found this one.
It was perfect, and it reminded me of our hands. It had a warmth that was missing from the others I’d looked at. I ordered it. And when I was done, I was curious about the artist, so I read her “About me” page. And there I learned that she lives in the Santa Cruz mountains.
The Santa Cruz mountains are the ones we went through to get out to Pigeon Point Lighthouse on our last trip together. They border his city. They are the ones whose rolling hills we drove through every time we headed into San Francisco. They are the mountains I drove in through the rain to get to the place where they scattered half his ashes. They are in his back yard.
And then I knew I’d done the right thing. There are no coincidences.
