I called it her “princess ring” because it looked like something an Arabian princess would wear. It is silver (but black all the years I’ve known it, because of sulfur water), with little pearls and sparkling tiny blue stones surrounding a larger pearl that rolls in its setting. As a child, I would sit next to her with my head on her shoulder and roll the little pearl around under my finger. I could have sat like this for hours.
She wore this ring on occasions: anniversaries, holidays, birthday dinners out, date nights, reunions, Sunday church service… I think because it made her feel pretty and young. To me, she was always pretty and young.
In the days after she died, I took all her rings, the good pieces, and put them neatly in her jewelry box and tucked them safely into a drawer. I have never forgotten they were there. I just couldn’t look at them off her hands. They were the softest hands I’ve ever held. She could do anything with those hands; bake, sew, knit, tile, refinish, paint, plant, dig, drive… but mostly comfort. Damnit I miss those hands.
I look down sometimes and see them.. mysteriously attached to me. Only she had better stories to tell about her hands. On either hand, she had a scared tip on each ring finger. Her left ring finger was cut off in a meat grinder when she was small. She told the story about how the local doctor cleaned it up and just wrapped it in place with a bandage and told her mom not to remove the bandage for so many days. Then she was to remove the bandage, wash and re-dress the finger periodically until it grew back together. She said it smelled awful but it grew together with very little noticeable scaring. Her right hand ring finger was cut off in a car door some years later. She would comment on how much more scaring was evident; marking it up to the doctor sewing it in place rather than using the older doctor’s technique. I didn’t much care, they were both beautiful to me.
Maybe because I had spent the afternoon in the garden where she would have been on a day like today. I took a long bath, like she would have, and brushed my long clean hair, like hers. I reached for the hand lotion and saw her hands, except they were missing something. I took the rings out and washed them carefully and placed a couple on my fingers. Then I rolled the pearl around with my index finger and imagined my head on her shoulder.
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