We write about widowhood as we live it. Together we examine the good, the bad, and the ugly parts of life as a widowed person. The views expressed here are those held by each individual author. We take no credit for their brillance; we just provide them with a forum for expressing their widowed journey in words that are uniquely their own.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
why I wear her ring
forgot to mention
what happened
when i went to
the doctor with madeline,
a woman sitting next to me
on the phone,
talking very loudly
(to a presumably disinterested party)
about nothing.
when she hung up,
she turned to me
(with madeline in a carseat on my lap, anya to my right)
and said,
“are you wearing your wife’s rings because they don’t fit on her finger?”
not knowing what
to say,
i turned to her
and said,
“no. my wife passed away the day after my baby was born and…”
before i could
finish the
sentence
she started bawling
and hurried out of
the waiting room
(leaving behind her teenage-daughter to watch her two-year old).
the rest of the
folks in the waiting room
seemed a little
shocked,
and also started crying.
the thing is,
i don’t really
know the best way
to answer
such a question.
i mean,
i could have made
up some crazy fucking story
about why i’m wearing
liz’s
rings
but,
the truth is
far crueler
than fiction in this case.
so i went with
the truth.
now…
the rest of the sentence,
the parts i didn’t
get out of my mouth
were the utilitarian reasons
i have
for wearing her
rings…
first,
i need to keep
them near me,
’cause i don’t
have a safety deposit box
and
second,
after having been burglarized
once already,
i can’t leave
them unattended in the
house.
(yes, i know it sounds irrational…i likely won’t get burglarized ever again, but i’d be seriously pissed if something happened to them).
besides,
after my unexpected
weight loss
(still down 22 pounds from the days before liz passed away)
the rings fit
perfectly on my pinkie.
anyway,
what self-respecting dude
doesn’t need a few
diamonds on his finger?
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wear them for as long as you wish. it is your life, your grief, and most definitely your choices. you are in my thoughts and prayers. beautiful photo.
ReplyDeleteYour entries really help me. Thank you for sharing.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful.
ReplyDeleteYou post made me cry and laugh. I wish you could have gotten your diamonds under different circumstances.
ReplyDelete