October 19, 2022

It was two years ago today that Jack died. They’ve been strange years for me, adjusting to living alone, learning to manage the tasks that had generally fallen to him, trying to find a way to navigate the aging process on my own, and slowly emerging from grief—at first a constant and prominent backdrop to everything I did, but now a tender spot that I visit often. Sometimes it still fills me with tears, sometimes with laughter, and most often with a quiet sadness. He was a good guy. I was lucky to share so many years with him. I miss him terribly.

On and off, over the past two years, I’ve tried to capture and understand my feelings of loss and self-discovery by writing about them, and by writing about the ways my life has changed. So far, I have half a dozen short essays. I’d like to share some of them here, but I hesitate. I hesitate because I don’t want readers—you—to respond with those Facebook emojis with the squishy heart. 

I recently heard this comment on the subject of grieving: Whenever you visit that spot, you will feel the pain of loss. But in time, when you are not focused on the loss, you will enjoy life as much as you ever did. I think I have reached that point. My grief is a quiet, private place in an overall fortunate and satisfying life. So please—no heart-clutching emojis! 

Here’s a short essay on one small physical reminder that a long marriage leaves a dent.

Leaving a Dent

I stood at the counter of a jewelry store, feeling decidedly out of place among the diamonds. In my hand I held a ring gifted to me by my grandmother when I was sixteen, three tiny diamonds set in a little white-gold mound. It was, she said, the first ring my grandfather had given her and she wanted it to be mine. Recently I had tried to place it on my finger and it barely passed over the knuckle. I wanted it enlarged. A year and a half after Jack’s death, it felt time to remove my wedding ring. I was, after all, no longer married. But when I took it off, it left behind a deep, conspicuous dent. I would cover the dent with my grandmother’s ring.

Eighteen months earlier, standing beside his death bed, I had insisted that Jack’s ring be removed before they took him away. I don’t know why; it would have come back to me. The attendant used hand lotion to tug it off his finger and placed it in my hand. He’d removed it only twice before: when he’d injured his left hand with a table saw a few years into the marriage, and moved it to his right hand; and for the surgery at the start of the downward journey that had just ended. That time, we’d used butter from a Tim Horton’s muffin in the hospital cafeteria to lubricate the finger.

Spring, 1966. Jack was taking a jewelry class as part of his art minor at Grinnell College, and we were to be married a few months later. The project was a no-brainer to an idealistic twenty-one-year-old. Also a no-brainer: these were to be no ordinary wedding rings. But how to design something both unique and achievable by a rank beginner? The result was a couple of irregularly shaped gold rings—smooth and circular on the inside, a bit like nuts on the outside, if truth be told, a fact that became something of a joke. 

The rings were a point of interest at our wedding, another bit of evidence that we were “unusual”, as Jack’s mother explained by way of apology for our deviation from her expectations. When I showed my ring to Jack’s grandmother, she said, “Be sure you never mistake the ring for the marriage.” It seemed wise counsel, but really, what did she mean?

Fifty-five years later, when I placed the two rings in the small cloth pouch where they now reside, the nut-like quality had been smoothed to a mere hint of irregularity. Thanks to the jewelry saleswoman’s insistence on polishing it when I removed it to try on my grandmother’s, mine glows garishly beside Jack’s.

I wore the diamond ring for a couple of months, but it was enlarged a bit too much and slipped annoyingly on my finger. Also, I’m not really a diamond ring kind of person. When I removed it, I noticed the dent on my finger had become much shallower, and now I wonder: Will it disappear entirely?