Sunday Scribblings – Chronicle of a Ring

When I was a little girl and would go to stay with my grandmother, we would play cards. And as we played, we would talk and I would hear the stories of her life, stories that we still talk about in my family. She wore an old-fashioned 1930s-era engagement and wedding ring that I always loved and admired. The rings had been separate once, though she had fused them together at some point. Sometimes, she would let me wear the ring as we played cards and drank Coke from fancy glasses. I always felt so grown-up on those days.

My grandmother died nearly seven years ago and her rings belong to me now. Just as we shared a middle name, we now share the rings. When they came my way I had the rings separated so that I could wear them with other rings I then owned. I wear one or both of her rings often these days, as a talisman of good luck and as a remembrance of her. I think of them as holding the essence of my grandmother ---- her politics (oh how she would have loved the Democratic victory last November); her love for a good political debate (the main reason I debate my father about the death penalty is to remember her passion for that issue); the happiness she received from a good book (a trait she passed my way).

When my mother last visited me, she remarked that my hands looked like my grandmother's. I have small hands and the rings always fit me perfectly and until my mother said that to me I never even thought about it. But it makes perfect sense to me now.