I always knew what kind of wedding ring I wanted to wear. I wanted one just like my father's. Jack wore -- still wears -- a gold band with a narrow beaded edge. It's a classic style, could be worn by a man or a woman. I liked it. It looked like what a wedding ring is supposed to look like.My mother, on the other hand, wore a silver-colored ring, about a third of an inch wide, with all sorts of filigree-type designs around it. Flowers? Birds? I couldn't tell. It seemed more than a wedding ring needed to be, especially when I found out it was platinum.
Then, for some special anniversary, she picked out a new wedding band. Much more ornate, gold, with three oval-shaped opals in it. I liked the ring -- I like opals -- but it didn't look like a wedding ring. The old one started looking better.
Alas, my hoped-for wedding band was not to be. First, my engagement ring was not so ordinary; we found an antique ring that I loved for only $800; it's too wide to wear with another ring and it's platinum; I wanted a gold band. Then my Aunt Rose, a collector of antique jewelry, gave us an antique wedding band for our wedding. Very plain, no beaded edge, a pinkish gold. Okay. I got married with that, and wore it for a few years, until pregnancy made my fingers swell, and I couldn't wear it anymore. Then I lost a lot of weight and it was too big.
I picked out and Hubs bought me a new ring, three intertwined, very thin, bands of gold, one white, one yellow, one pink. It looks like a puzzle ring, except it's not a puzzle. I've worn it for most of the last 22 years.
Once, I wanted to wear my engagement ring, and I asked my mother if she had a ring I could wear that would go with it so I could wear them together. She dug into her jewelry box and pulled out her original wedding ring. They looked good together; she said I could keep it. It didn't seem like a big deal to her.
When Shirl died in May, I felt very strongly that I wanted to have something of hers with me, at least though the funeral, and then for a while after. So I put on her wedding ring, which now I see is so beautiful and classically simple. Inside, I can still see the faintest image of the inscription that was put there just over 58 years ago: "All my love, Jack" He signed every card that way, even every letter he sent home from World War II. I saw it a hundred times.
And now I wear it, every day. It's her, it's him. It's me.
