A Valuable Lesson From My Grandmother’s Ring

When my grandmother lost her wedding rings in a house fire in the 1940’s, instead of a diamond, I don’t think they were in style yet, my grandfather bought her a beautiful sapphire ring to replace them. The ring was not precious because of the size of the stone, or the antique setting. It was precious because it had belonged to a lady whose influence and love I feel even today.

The Story of How my Grandmother Lost Her Wedding Rings This is the story my mother told me about the sapphire ring, and how the wedding rings were lost. There had been a little power outage at their home. My grandmother was probably there alone, so she got a stool, went outside and climbed up to reach the fuse box. The rest is quite too horrible to tell, but the stool tipped, and one of her fingers was torn off at the knuckle joint. As a result, the wedding rings were put in a glass jar on her dresser until she healed, and could wear them again. However, a few days later, a spark from the chimney lit the roof on fire, and subsequently, the house burned to the ground. Apparently the little local fire department couldn’t get their truck started when they got the emergency call. A neighbor later said the fire truck drove past late that night. My mother always joked that they saved the foundation and the chimney. My mother also told me how she and her sister spent days sifting through the ashes, looking for the ring. Clearly it was an impossible task, especially since my grandmother’s bedroom was beneath the section of the attic where the canning jars were stored. As a result, all of that glass melted in the fire on top of everything that had been in her bedroom. Anyone who has been through a catastrophe like a house fire knows what a loss the objects containing sentimental memories are, but the greatest loss is when you lose a family member. Luckily, my grandfather was home that day, and was able to wake his father-in -aw who was taking an afternoon nap in the attic. Everyone was safe.

How the Sapphire Ring Became Mine I don’t have any memory of my grandmother wearing her beautiful sapphire ring. When she died I was only 12. However, I do remember opening my mothers dresser drawer, taking out her jewelry box, and looking at it frequently. Sometimes my mother would let me try it on. “You can’t wear it until you’re older,” I was always told. How much older, I’m not sure, because at around the age of 16, I took it out and started wearing it. I realize that wasn’t how my mother intended for me to have my grandmother’s ring. I imagine she would have liked to have given it to me on a special occasion. But the ring had a power over me. I was like Golum who craved to wear the ring, and I couldn’t wait until I was older. It was really loose on my finger. Even though my grandmother had been quite thin as an old lady, she had been heavier when my grandfather gave it to her. My mother never told me outright to put the ring back, but she did express concern it would slip off my finger. So when I was in my last year of high school, she had it resized. I wore it in my graduation photo.

The Ring Vanishes By the time I was in college, I’d lost a lot of weight since high school. The ring was getting loose again. My last memory of the ring was playing touch football at a park on New Year’s Day in the cold. But I also have a memory that I put it somewhere. Whether it slipped off my finger on the football field, or I placed it somewhere it can never be found, I haven’t seen the ring in many, many years. And it’s loss is heartbreaking to me, because it was the one thing of my grandmothers that I had.

Lessons From Loss We all do things as teenagers that we have misgivings about. And I regret taking the ring that wasn’t mine yet, just because I knew it someday would be. I once asked a psychic what happened to the ring. She told me I did lose it on the football field. “A little girl had found it,” she said. And it was precious to her. Precious. She also said I lost the ring because it was never mine. It hadn’t been given.

When a New Ring is Forged My husband doesn’t have the power to journey to the Mountain of Doom to reforge the ring for me. And luckily this ring doesn’t represent that kind of evil. No. It represents a woman from another era who I love, admire, and remember. But what he does have is my high school photo which shows the rings design clearly. Someday when we have the extra money, he’s promised we will have it copied. I will be patient this time. I hope I have learned this valuable lesson. To never again take what I’m not given.