you can hold her hand

title: coconut skins – artist: damien rice

I’ve recently found I’m a bit more sentimental than I used to be. Don’t get me wrong, the tendency to pare down and purge is still fully ingrained thanks to the many moves I’ve been a part of. But I’m beginning to find a deeper appreciation for items that have managed to stick around, either through a sense of obligation or the fact that they served some function, because they have some association to a grandparent or parent.

But obligation really only works if the items are small. And/or it’s from my mom’s mom.

In 1995, I think it was, my mom’s mom (henceforth likely referred to as "grandmother" or some variation thereof) went on a cruise. One of the stops was Prague. The gifts my mom and I received from this trip were garnet rings in sterling settings that she picked up in Prague. At the time, I was 11 and the only one between the two of us that wore white metals (a few years later, I would decide to exclusively wear white metals and not long after that my mother would join me in this thinking). I was still working on developing my taste in a great many things and garnets were/are my birthstone, and neither of the rings really suited my mom’s preferences, so she decided they were both mine. I wore them somewhat consistently for awhile. Then with less frequency. And finally they wound up being stored and moved, but never really worn after that.

In October of 2001, my grandmother and her husband came to visit us in Hammondsport. She brought various bits and baubles for both my mother and myself. Mine was pretty much jewelery. And, well, my grandmother and I have very different tastes in jewelery. I’m all about the white metals and clean, simple designs. She seems to favor yellow gold, but will go with a white metal occasionally, and something considerably more fussy.

One of the pieces was a ruby and diamond ring set in yellow gold. She was insistent I get the points checked before wearing it. I… had no intentions of wearing it. Plus, where we lived in Hammondsport was pretty remote and going to a jeweler to have the points checked and then potentially having to follow up on it all should the ring not check out, for a piece I wasn’t really interested in wearing anyway, seemed like way too much of a hassle.

So I stored it. And, quite frankly, forgot about it.

A week or two ago, a combination of thoughts transpired that caused me to hunt up the garnet rings. Actually, I was after one in particular, but since I knew they were together, and I was going to be cleaning some of my silver jewelery anyway, I pulled them both out.

I had decided to start wearing a ring on my left ring finger. While I could’ve gone out and picked up something precisely my style, I kind of dug the idea of wearing a ring with more background to it. And, I admit, the sentimentality of wearing something from my grandmother appealed to me.

So, while I was hunting up the garnet rings, I found out I had put them with the ruby ring she’d given me. It had been awhile since I’d seen it. This time around, I was surprised to find I kind of liked it. Not enough to start adopting a whole new style in the jewelery department, but my initial reaction had faded considerably.

Even though I cleaned the garnet rings, and even though they’re silver, and so they go with the rest of the (minimal amount of) jewelery I wear on a regular basis, I decided to start wearing the ruby ring. Without getting the points checked. I didn’t know much about the ring, but I knew my grandmother had bought it for herself and she’d loved it. It had more history than the garnet rings and I kept finding myself drawn to it more, anyway.

Last night (or the night before last, now, technically), I decided to send her an email and ask about the story behind the ring. I’m so glad I did.

Only a small story. I bought the ring for myself, I felt I deserved a treat. We were working long hours at the phone company. 10-14 hours a day, 6 days a week. They had put a new computer program in place to assign the outside plant. The program had lots of bugs in it. The installers and repairmen were calling like crazy because of incorrect assignments. This started in the winter time, maybe around the first of the year in about 1986. One day they sent us home early because the system was down, and they knew it would be down several hours. Lo and behold, when we went outside in the daylight, we could see it was spring. We were bummed, because we didn’t want to miss summer, but there wasn’t much we could do about it. My friend, Syd, and I walked downtown and looked in a jewelery store window and I saw the ring. It reminded me of pomegranates. I said I am going to buy that. Syd found a garnet ring that she loved. We put them on lay-a-way. As I recall, I think the ring was about $1600. I don’t remember how long we had them on lay-a-way, but we did get them. I really loved that ring, and I am glad you have it. Not much of a story. But do get the points checked! Love, Grandma 

I went and got the points checked today. Everything was fine. Which made me feel better about wearing it without getting it checked prior. I think it may be missing a stone (and the setting with it), but it’s more like a spot of character, really. And also the most probable reason for my grandmother being so insistent about the checking of the points.

Not only does the ring serve its desired function, but it provides a tether to my grandmother that I’m growing to appreciate more and more.

I’m still not big on heirlooms and traditions. But I think I get it a bit more now. And this ring? It means more to me now than it ever did. And I suppose I can see the appeal of sentimentality now. At least a little, anyway.