Band of Gold

My rings. I'm so aware of them lately.

My hands tell you that I am married. Unavailable. I have a husband. He is here - present tense, not he was here.

I've been thinking about my rings a lot lately. Much more aware of them in my daily life than I have been in years.

I remember when I first started wearing them. When he put the engagement ring on my finger and I couldn't stop staring at it. I felt it constantly. Looked at it constantly. As did others. "Let me see your ring!" was the frequent cry of friends and family. My delicate, perfect, engagement ring. The one he spent all summer at a miserable phone job at a Verizon call center working to earn while I was out of state working as a camp counselor, trail guide and riding instructor.

Our engagement ring is perfect. He did good. He slipped it on my finger and then we had our first kiss(es) beside a waterfall. It was magical. A moment we had worked toward for years. Years of waiting to say I love you and for our first kiss. Hours of talking, summers separated by hundreds of miles.

G didn't try to compete with the other guys buying rings at the time when he bought mine (which was common in our friend groups). He simply chose what he could afford and what he knew I would like. I loved it then and I love it now. It has always been the perfect ring.

10 months later we said our vows and he slipped our wedding band on my finger. It has 1 Cor. 13:4-7 engraved on the inside- a passage that was read at our wedding. His band was a more masculine version of mine with a matching engraving.

From those days on, the rings never left our hands. We weren't the type to take them off to wash dishes, go hiking, swim in the ocean, etc. They were always on.

When G lost a lot of weight around his heart transplant, he wrapped his wring in black duct tape in one small area so that it wouldn't slip off (which it did once in my parents' from yard - necessitating a whole-family ring hunt in the dark complete with metal detector!). He did that again in the last year of his life too and that little strip of black duct tape remains on his ring today as it sits in the memory box.

When I was pregnant with P and my hands swelled up and the doctors warned me that my ring could get stuck on and cause a problem, I temporarily removed it, replacing it with a fun a gaudy fake plastic ring until after P was born and the swelling went down and I could put on my beloved ring once again.

I've always been proud of my rings and what they represent. Proud to be married. To be very clearly NOT available. Loved how delicate they are on my small hands. Love the way they remind me of how G was so precise and intentional with things that were important to him. How he worked hard to afford this ring and refused to take on debt. They remind me of the man he was when we fell in love - before depression and illness took away some of that fire and passion that burned inside of him.

But now? He's been gone longer than our engagement lasted. It's been over 11 months since I hugged him, told him I loved him, helped him up the stairs, gave him a kiss... held him and wept as we came to the decision to not pursue another heart transplant - mere hours before he died.

I am trying to move forward. I have to. I am 36. Life did not end when G's life ended.

I have been waiting to take off my rings. For what? I'm not sure. I'm trying to wrap my mind around the reality that I am no longer married. My husband died. Death did us part. I am not just solo, I am single.

He will always be a part of my heart and a part of who I am - an integral part of our family. And yet - I can't live like he's coming back. I can't wait for a dead man to come back to be with me. He is in the grave. He is with the Lord.

And there's a man I've met recently - a widower- that I have some feelings towards. And it feels strange to admit it so I'm only admitting it here. I admire him. I like being in his presence. I barely know him really. But I think I'd like to know him more. And I can't do that while holding on to my marriage with G that ended when he died. Ugh it's all so complicated.

So I think I have a plan. My precious engagement ring - I'd love to save that as a family heirloom and a testament of our love. To tell the stories to P some day. Maybe he will give it to a wife or a daughter. Maybe I will give it to a daughter-in-law or a granddaughter. And I'd like to keep my wedding band on for now - but change hands. Put it on my middle finger (if it fits) or my ring finger next to P's birth stone ring. The rings that represent my boyz (always with a Z <3). But not yet. I need to get through the holidays. Through the anniversary of G's death. Through the day we buried him.

And then... I may force myself to do it. Ready or not. To confront reality. Or maybe I won't be able to do it when the time comes. Jan 1, 2022 - the beginning of another calendar year that G did not live on this earth. Incomprehensible but real.

Lord help me. Lord guide me. Protect my heart from idols. Amen.