Of Rings and Things

For years Mom wore her "mother's-ring," which her children had given her, on the same finger as her wedding band. The mother's-ring and wedding band had been connected by a jeweler (for the rest of this written story, I'll call these two connected rings her "ring"). She wore her ring as if it were her wedding ring. 

After her father's near-fatal car accident in 1995, she continued wearing the ring on her left-hand ring-ringer and added her grandfather's wedding band to her right middle finger. Her father had allowed Mom to give her grandfather's wedding band to David at their wedding. A ring on each hand, her wedding/mother's-ring on the left and grandfather's ring on the right symbolized the most important things in her life.

One day (around 2010 or 2011) she was at Fred & Cherilynn's home giving piano lessons. As she was visiting in their kitchen, before saying goodbye, she heard a tinkling sound. Startled, she realized that both the ring and grandfather's wedding band had slipped off her hands.  She was so grateful to easily find the rings and that they hadn't slipped off outside or somewhere where they couldn't be found. She was especially surprised that they had both fallen off separate hands at the same instant. 

When she realized how loose the rings were on her fingers, she regularly removed the rings and put them in a safe place when she did things that she felt she might increase the chances of them being lost. She had very specific places in the house where she kept them when she was not wearing them. One morning when she went to put them on, the rings were not where she expected to find them. She quickly looked in the other places she typically kept them, but the rings were not there. 

She began frantically searching the house, looking for anywhere else she might have put them. During the following weeks, she enlisted the help of family members in the search, with no luck. For years, she was unable to find the rings and began to wonder if, perhaps, they had been stolen. 

Her heart ached, knowing that her grandfather's wedding band, her mother's-ring, and her second wedding band were all gone. She tried to comfort herself by acknowledging that they were only "things," and that "things" weren't that important. 

Around 5 years later, in April of 2016, preparatory to a change for Greg to teach in Marsh Valley School District (he had been teaching in Montpelier), Greg and Sherilynn moved into Mom and Dad's home. The intent was that perhaps they could be a help and support to Mom and Dad, as Dad had been struggling with his health.

Greg and Sherilynn needed room for their things, especially in the basement. Somehow the two families needed to remove or re-arrange furniture and other items to have a home that could be comfortable for both families.

When I was age 9 and my family moved into the home, one room was given to my mother. It served as a laundry, sewing, craft, and multi-purpose room--filled with a wide variety of my mother's things. After Greg and Sherilynn moved into the home, Sherilynn suggested that this laundry room could become a "changing room" for their family where all their children's clothing could be kept. Because Greg and Sherilynn needed extra space, Mom and Sherilynn discussed going through this room together.

The next day, Mom was surprised as she stepped into the laundry room. It had been reorganized. Most of the fabric was neatly placed on the top shelf. Contents from the other shelves and dressers were placed in large black garbage bags. Sherilynn had "cleaned the room" and prepared it for their family's use.

Mom wanted to go through the bags to ensure that her important items weren't given to Deseret Industries (a thrift store), or thrown away. Mom attempted to pick a bag up and take it upstairs to sort, but it was too heavy. She looked around the room and found a white, half-full, tall-kitchen bag, with orange tie straps (such bags were very new to Mom's home). Discouraged and disappointed, Mom took the small bag upstairs and began sorting through it. Because of interruptions with phone calls and visitors, the task took several days. Most of the bag was trash--to be thrown away, although she did find a few useful items, she worried about the contents of the other bags that were being disposed of.

After sorting through the bag, Mom went to use the bag for a garbage bag in the kitchen garbage container. She noticed that the bag had a hole in the bottom. She visualized the bag being filled with kitchen items and then being carried out to the garbage. Stinky food and liquids might leak through the holes and spill across the room as it was carried to the garbage dumpster. That would not work, so she placed the bag into the garbage. 

As she saw the bag in the garbage can, she realized, "If I leave that bag there, David will think the bag is fine and will certainly pull it out and use it as a garbage bag" and then the imagined mess would undoubtedly come to pass.

Mom was leaving town at that moment, so she handed the bag to Alison (Greg and Sherilynn's ten-year-old daughter) and asked her to take the bag directly to the garbage dumpster in the garage. Mom left and was glad to know that even though it took extra time, she had completed one task and prevented a mess. Mom then left for a trip to Utah.  

Mom wearing her scouting lanyard and pins

Sometime later, Clark came to their home with a Mother's Day gift. It was a lanyard on which Mom could display mother's pins recognizing her eight sons' Eagle Scout awards. He had also purchased tiny eagle pins to represent the Eagle awards of her grandsons. Clark excitedly ask her to find all of her "Mother's Pins" from scouting so they could place them on the lanyard. When Mom returned with her Mother's pins and Clark began organizing the lanyard, they realized they had a problem. How would they show Kathy's son, Dallas' Eagle award? Mom went back into her drawer and retrieved some small piano pins that she had used as awards for her students. They were about the same size as the Mother's Eagle pins, the piano pins were used to represent her daughters' great accomplishments. 

Dad observed quietly and enjoyed watching this process. He suddenly arose and left the room. He returned with something in his hand. He was very pleased and said "Maybe these will help." He then handed her two rings--

Mom exclaimed with disbelief and gratitude, "Where did you find these?"

"THE RING"

Dad has been struggling with early onset dementia for several years. He couldn't remember where the rings were found, only that he needed to give them to her. Later, he remembered that a little girl had given them to him. 

Something Becky had said about Emma's visit with Alison while Mom was in Utah prompted Mom to ask Alison if it were she who had found the rings and given them to Grandpa. She acknowledged that she had, but when Mom asked where she had found the rings, Alison seemed confused. Suddenly, Alison remembered that, as she taking the white tall-kitchen bag with the orange handles out to the garage, she was swinging it around. As she swung the bag, she heard a tinkling sound. Something had fallen out of the bag. She then climbed around in the large two-car garage that was nearly wall-to-wall with Dad's collections as well as Greg and Sherilynn's things from their large home and garage. After some searching, she found the source of the tinkling... "the ring" and Mom's Grandfather's wedding band!

Upon finding the rings, Mom had the ring professionally connected to her wedding band and re-sized to snugly fit her finger. She now wears "the ring" on her right hand.  The diamond wedding ring, purchased in 2013 by Dean, remains on her left hand (see additional history, below). Her grandfather's wedding band stays safely at home while the memories it invokes are forever inseparably connected with "the ring."

_______________________

Some additional history (probably boring, but very special to me): 

When I was in High School, Mom explained to me that when she had gotten married she chose to have a simple gold band, instead of a ring with a diamond on it. She chose a simple gold band because older couples, who had been married for decades, had only a simple band. She felt that it symbolized a long marriage and life of happiness. She then sadly stated that her wedding ring had been stolen years before I was born. A new gold band was later purchased to replace it.

I asked if she'd ever wished she had a wedding ring with diamonds. She explained that at times she had. Now that she'd been married for years, she wasn't interested in a new wedding ring, she would prefer a mother's-ring, containing a birthstone for each of her children.

I'd never heard of a mother's-ring so I asked deeper questions. She shared an idea of how she might like the ring to look. I sketched several possible ways the ring could look. It was fun to dream with her and learn more about my mother.

After this visit, I felt an urge to make her dream a reality. I started looking for mother's-rings at various jewelry stores. None of the stores had a ring that could fit ten birth stones and still be shaped as we'd envisioned. She wanted the ring to have character, all the stores could provide was a straight line of birth stones. 

Finally, Jensen's Jewelers, in Idaho Falls, told me that they could make a ring to fit Mom's interests. They had a large ring where smaller birthstones could be added. While it wasn't a mother's-ring, it could be made into one.

I contacted each of my siblings about the possibility of helping to pay for this special ring. Eventually her ring was completed and presented to her. Mom loved her specially designed and crafted mother's-ring. 

The ring was designed with the following thought:

Mom's birthstone, blue topaz, in the center with two small diamonds on each side of it representing Dad & Mom's marriage. Moving out from there are ten birth stones, one for each child. Everything circles around the main setting (representing eternity/no end) and makes a heart shape (representing love).

She often wore it on the same finger as her replacement wedding band. Later, when some of the gold had begun to wear, she had a jeweler connect the two rings.  

"The Ring" and the Ring Dean gave Mom

The ring Dean gave Mom

Several years after Mom's "ring" disappeared, Dean was asked by a divorced mother to help her sell her wedding ring because she didn't want it and she needed money. He could not find a buyer other than a Jeweler, who offered to pay only a very low salvage price, less than a tenth of original purchase price. After determining how much money the young mother needed, he purchased her ring for the amount she needed, several times the amount she could get from the jeweler. The ring has a large marquise center diamond with 3 sets of two small diamonds on each side.  He gave the ring to Mom to help take the place of her lost rings. Mom continues to wear both rings, one on the left hand, the other on the right.

One special bonus (for anyone who reads this long post). In the photo of Mom wearing the lanyard that Clark gave Mom, if you look closely, you can see she is wearing "The Ring" as well as her grandfather's wedding band.