Jennifro

Come Full Circle

Long ago I remember Grandma Miller telling me the story about when she woke up in the morning to find her wedding ring missing from her finger. Try as she might, she could never find it. She knew it had been on her finger the night before and after searching and searching and searching she figured she must have swallowed it, "cause I didn't really like it; the diamond was just so small" she told me. I remember when she finally got the diamond she dreamed of, maybe 50 years later, and it looked just like mine, a pretty solitaire on a thin gold band. I was happy for her and it made me like my own ring even more since we shared this in common. But a woman is a fickle thing, and over the years I grew tired of my ring thinking that it was ordinary and boring and just the same as my mother's and grandmother's after all. So two years ago, feeling rather entitled, I bought myself a new set and tossed the real ones in the jewelry box alongside the JC Penney junk. Every now and then when I'd rummage through for a bracelet, I'd think, "I really ought to put those somewhere safe." The way that I casually discarded them makes me quite sad now that I think about it. Like the time Dad couldn't bear to leave the broken-down Vega in North-side Vegas. He swore that car looked heartbroken as he abandoned her there in the ghetto where she didn't belong, so he went back for her that night. I only wish I had the sensitivity of my father.

So tonight, as I lay sleepless in bed, a drifting thought triggered an alarming stab to my heart. "I don't remember seeing my wedding rings when I organized my jewelry." Immediately, I rose in a panic and sifted through my perfectly ordered drawer and up into the attic stash, and sure enough, they're gone. I've let Camille and her cousins rifle through my treasures countless times to add accessories to their dress-ups, and it never really occurred to me to keep the rings out of their reach. The image of my diamond slipping from a five year olds bouncing fingers and falling to their final resting place beneath the tramp, weighs heavy on my heart like the mud they are likely buried under. I am sad. Deep down sad and filled with regret. In the morning I will wake unencumbered, until I feel the pang of remembrance that something I loved has been swallowed up.