I had a realization this week while getting ready for work. I had taken my rings off to put on some hand lotion. As I was putting them back on a thought crossed my mind. It suddenly occurred to me that I was viewing these three rings as symbols of something. They weren’t just pretty on my hands, they meant something. These three rings were my wedding ring, my mother’s wedding ring and my dad’s wedding ring.
It got me to thinking about how pieces of jewelry have affected me over the span of my lifetime. I remember in junior high that when you had a boyfriend, he would buy you an ID bracelet with his name on it or a bracelet with your name on it with his profession of love for you on the back. How vividly I remember those times. You know when you are junior high and a boy likes you, it turns your whole world upside down. I wonder what ever happened to those bracelets?
In high school the jewelry changed to an item called a “drop”. Who makes up this stuff? Anyway, a “drop” was on a chain and was an item that was created with your boyfriend’s initials on it. If you were going steady with a guy, you were honored to wear his “drop”. I had a boyfriend during this time. In fact it was the same one who had to buy me the bracelet in junior high. But he didn’t have a “drop” and I can recall badgering him to “get me a drop”. Hey, I wanted to be like all the other girls who had boyfriends. Isn’t that what high school is all about, fitting in? Well he finally put a “drop” around my neck, but as I recall, we didn’t last too much longer. Maybe I was a little too pushy. In fact, my mother told me years later that I could be a bit “overbearing.” Can you believe that? My own mother. Well she was right, as she usually was. I was a spoiled little girl who was used to getting her way. So I apologize to my junior high/high school boyfriend for being so overbearing. You were a nice guy.
Now the latter half of high school there was the “class ring” thing and many times the boyfriend would put his class ring on a chain for his girl to wear or wrap wads of tape around it to fit your finger. If you were walking around with a class ring hanging from a chain or on your finger, it was pretty powerful. The only problem with both the drop and the class ring, when you broke up, you had to give them back and that was difficult if the breakup wasn’t your idea.
Then there was the “promise” ring. Remember those? I had two from two different guys. Not sure what they were “promising” me though. I remember going to Drakes jewelry store with my then boyfriend to look at promise rings. We were seniors in high school and I think he got it for me for Christmas or my birthday. I can recall his mother being “less than thrilled.” It was a little gold band with a diamond “flake”. Yes, I can call it a “flake” because it was so tiny but I loved it. So what was he promising me? To love me forever? To marry me some day? To break my heart? To move on without me? Good question. I moved on without him….. The second promise ring came during my freshman year of college and it came from the guy that I had moved on with….. then he moved on without me. I still have this little ring and I turned it into a pinky ring. In fact, when my daughter was 4, she wore it when she had her four year old portrait taken. How fun is that?
I went on for a couple of years without any significant jewelry from a guy until I got married in 1981. I don’t know that I could call it significant, it was just a gold wedding band. No engagement ring. In fact, there was not even any mention of getting me an engagement ring. Now this was an entirely new twist for me. I usually insisted on things (so my mother tells me). But I had not pitched a fit, carried on or insisted on an engagement ring. The simple gold band around my ring finger was all I needed. I apparently had lost my mind. Over the course of that 9 years, 9 months and 20 days or so, I wore that ring with a plethora of emotions. I loved this man, but I was never very sure from day to day, week to week, just how much he loved me. I had two children with this man, which were the best things to come out of that marriage. I wore that ring every day, it meant something to me. Him, well he wore his ring at first and then it conveniently got lost. Then he asked me to buy him a new one and seems like that one got lost too. I remember that it took me several days after a judge granted the divorce for me to officially take that ring off. I had such high hopes when I got married. I was not that same little spoiled girl my mother talked to me about and yet here I was divorced. Taking that ring off, I felt like a complete failure to myself and to my children. Yet in reality, I had very little to do with that failure.
Two short years later I put on another wedding ring, but should not have. This ring I already owned. The new man didn’t even care enough to put an engagement ring or “new” wedding ring on my finger. But that’s ok because there were too many things wrong with this scenario to elaborate. Besides, it’s that five year period of time I don’t discuss very much. This ring had no trouble coming off my finger and I no longer have it in my possession.
So back to my three very special rings. Nine years later, the love of my life and now husband got down on one knee inside of a horse drawn carriage in downtown Oklahoma City, proposed and put a beautiful diamond “engagement” ring on my finger. That’s right, an actual diamond. The most beautiful diamond ring I had ever seen from the most beautiful man. Now that’s how you show a girl you love her. The following year he added a wedding ring to it and every day when I look at that ring, I am proud to wear it and am proud to be his wife.
So that takes me to the other couple I knew who were deeply in love and committed to each other for 60 years, my parents Lonie and Margarett. Over the past few years, I have lost them both and it’s been very difficult. They were always such big influences in my life and their unconditional love of me and my children kept me going on days I wasn’t sure I could keep going. I now have both of their wedding rings and I wear them on my hands each day. It is my constant reminder of how much they loved me and how much I love them. Seems silly I know, but it helps me to feel close to them. They are never far from my mind and my memories of them are strong in my heart.
So to answer the question “bling” or “something else”? For me it’s “something else.”
Queen of My Kingdom 