With This Ring

The wedding ring is twisted a bit off-center, a victim of physical forces beyond its ability to withstand, yet it remains intact. The primary band, the engagement ring with its single diamond, still perches proudly within the ring guard capped with tri-diamond chevrons on either side. Even in its warped condition, the bands and their stones still dazzle in the light.

It is a modest wedding set, designed and built by a family friend based upon a description given over the phone. He sketched a draft that we loved, and crafted the set within a week or so in the Autumn of 1979. I don’t know how much we paid for it back then, but it is priceless now.

The bands were bent in a car accident. In the blink of an eye, two and a half tons of metal, rubber, plastic, and chrome were reduced to so much scrap. The car saved her life: Every airbag deployed, wrapping her in a protective, inflated cocoon that lasted only milliseconds, then collapsed with a sigh, and hung limp and spent, dusting the interior with propellant, fragments, and regret.

She survived. The ring survived. The car did not.

Wedding rings are intended as tokens of our undying love for one another. Their sparkling novelty when issued is like the shiny newness of the freshly-minted marriage they represent, all optimism and liveliness. And as the years pass, and The Two truly become One, melding into the nooks and crannies and hollows of one another, bending, twisting, accommodating, the marriage mellows and strengthens in an indescribable, indestructible way.
It is a bond indeed.

The ring, though bent, remains a durable token of a life lived together; not necessarily so shiny on the outside, but golden and warm from within. We are scarred by life’s battles, torqued by the twists and turns of fate, but remain soldered together with love, hope, faith, and tenacity. So this ring now continues to symbolize our eternal love, undying devotion, and determination to survive the toughest of times.