It strikes me now how unusual it was that I went round carrying an engagement ring from a useless man. However it was arduous for me to just accept that Steve was gone. Within the remaining weeks of his life, he was in a lot ache that he might bear solely mild kisses, so in mattress every night time we held arms like shy youngsters. With my hand clutching his as we fell asleep, I had half-convinced myself that when his soul slipped away, I’d be carried together with him. After he died, I used to be momentarily shocked to search out myself nonetheless alive.
At some point, a few 12 months after Steve died, I took my ring off to clean dishes and set it on the windowsill. After drying my arms, I picked up the ring, however one thing stopped me from slipping it again on. There was nothing totally different about that day, although I had lately turned 28 and had purchased a home.
Time was transferring ahead, however I used to be nonetheless tethered to a previous, with no promise of a return to it, or of a future. Carrying that diamond, I used to be endlessly engaged, in nuptial limbo, a phantom relationship: The guts goes on loving lengthy after its object is gone. I used to be betrothed however by no means to wed. The origin of the phrase betrothed is “fact,” however the ring was a lie. I couldn’t “interact” with Steve for the straightforward motive that he was not alive.
At first, I felt responsible tucking the ring in my jewellery field, wedged in a fold of purple velvet, particularly as I noticed the diamond each day after I dressed for work. However over time it was liberating, my arms free and unencumbered with the heaviness of the ring and all it symbolized.
On the finish of his life, Steve advised me he wished me to search out another person to like. I all the time answered that I didn’t need anybody else. After he died, I believed wholly that I’d by no means fall in love once more. I couldn’t think about it, couldn’t envision it. However three years later, to my shock, I did fall in love, and after that relationship ended, I fell in love once more, after which once more. However I’ve by no means married so I’ve by no means once more been formally engaged, with a hoop to seal the deal.
Now, many years later, I nonetheless have the ring. Often, after I open my fireproof lockbox to retailer paperwork, I see the ring in its small black field, in a baggie with the certificates from LeRoy’s Jewelers, guaranteeing that the diamond was lower and polished “by a grasp craftsman” who created a “gem of full magnificence.”
