Yesterday I went to a jeweler to have my wedding band cut
off.
No, it’s not the end of our 19-year marriage. The moment
itself was unremarkable: I was shopping for pants at the mall, on my way to a
hair appointment, when I stopped in at the jewelry store.
After a short wait, during which I worried more about being
late for my haircut than about cutting my wedding ring, a man appeared with a
turquoise device that had a tiny mechanical circle saw. Other store employees gathered round to
watch. In less than a minute, the ring was split and slipped off my swollen
finger.
Why have the ring cut off? That swollen finger requires
minor surgery today, and will probably be even more puffed up afterward. But isn’t it odd that of all 10 fingers
that could have developed a cyst, it just happens to be the ring finger on my
left hand? And wasn’t it odder still that I took the ring off when the finger
started to swell and then, after a week of having it gone, missed it so much
that I convinced myself the problem was getting better and shoved the ring back
on? Within a few days, it was too
late to get it off again, despite my best efforts with ice and Crisco. Ouch.
Still, despite that mundane moment at the mall, having your
wedding band severed feels significant. This little circle of gold has been a metaphor of commitment
19 years. Had I been smart enough to just leave it off when my finger grew too
big for it, it would still be in one piece, a circle complete. Instead, I’m
staring at a gap of air between the gold, the circle broken.
If it weren’t for my mother, I wouldn’t even have known you
could have a ring cut off. Twenty
years ago this month, my mom married an older man. She was 82; he was 86. She
had been a widow for seven years, and she still wore the thin gold band my
father had given her 58 years earlier.
Now, when her new beau wanted to slip his own ring on her finger, she couldn’t
get the old one past her arthritic knuckle. So she went to a jeweler and had it
cut off.
I still have the two pieces of her ring. For me they
represent her faith in the future, her willingness to step off into an unknown
land.
I have faith in the future, too. Yesterday, the jeweler
assured me that my band could be repaired, my circle completed once again.
