Wedding Rings...

This is something I’ve been obsessing about.

I’ve been trying to think about how long I’ve been obsessing about it, about when I started wondering about it, and I think it’s been since the very beginning.

I have a client that is a young widow.  She lost her husband in a similar way to the way I lost mine, he was around forty years old, was completely healthy, played tennis in the morning, and died in the afternoon (I think it was a heart/artery issue).  She was in my chair about six weeks after Sawan died, and we had never talked about her widowhood before, so she was just being sweet and open about if I wanted to talk about it, etc.  The first thing I asked her was how long she wore her ring.  She said that she wore it about six months, and then the questions by others about if she was married or not were just so hard that she stopped wearing it.

I have another friend that lost her fiancé right before they were to be married.  I asked her the same question, about her ring.  He died eight years ago.  She said that she still wears it, sometimes.  She would wear it off and on.  She wore it all the time for a while, and then would take it off, and then when she would be in a new cycle of her grief, she would start wearing it again.

Another widow friend of mine is remarried and still wears her ring from her first husband on her right hand.  This is an idea that hadn’t occurred to me.  Just switching hands.  

I’ve read websites, I’ve done research.  Some people wear his and hers rings on a chain around their necks.  Some have had them re-set into a new ring to wear.  Some simply take them off.  Some have had the ashes from cremation made into a man- made diamond and wear that in lieu of a wedding ring. 

Clearly everyone does something different and whatever feels right for them at the time.  Whatever I decide for right now doesn’t have to be what I do forever.  I went through a short two-week period where I tried not wearing it back in the spring and it was just so hard on me that I started wearing it again.  I felt like I was forcing myself, and I missed it so much.

It really is a beautiful piece of jewelry.  I’ve never seen a ring that was more me or that I liked more than the one that he picked me.  I only have the engagement band, I didn’t want the wedding band, because of what I do for work (hairstylist). I didn’t want something bulky since I’m always putting on gloves for color or running my hands through long strands of hair at the shampoo bowl.  It’s got tiny little diamonds set in the band (I think they call it pave) and then a round main stone, which was Sawan’s grandmothers.  It looks very vintage.

But lately I’ve been just obsessed with the idea that it’s time for a change.  Mostly because I’m just so tired of the questions.  It completely deflates me when someone asks me if I’m married or engaged.  But I don’t want to not wear my ring anymore, so I like the idea of moving it to my right hand.

I tried this, but my left hand felt so naked.  I would feel for my ring with my thumb and panic for a moment about having lost it, and then realize that it was just on my other hand.  I bought something to wear on my left ring finger but nothing I bought seemed to be appropriate.  So I had an idea.

I went to my jewelry box and got out Sawan’s rings.  I’m wearing them on my left hand on my middle finger (they don’t really fit, I have freakishly small fingers, but with stacking two it seems to be staying on ok…).  He had two.  One was the ring that he got married with, a mixed yellow and white gold band that looks like it has a wave running through it (it reminded him of water and he loved it).  The other is a plain silver band that we bought at a street fair and he wore when he went fishing, afraid that he would lose his good one. 

This seems to be solving the problem for me for the time being.  I haven’t had a question yet about being married with the ring on my right hand, and with his rings on my left hand I look for them with my thumb rather than for my own ring. 

Just thought I’d let you in on what occupies my brain wanderings these days.