ring

My mom gave me a diamond solitaire ring for Christmas. I’m still not used to how it feels on my hand, so I touch it a lot, adjusting it, shifting it left and right and straight up again. When I clap my hands in applause, it moves. When I type, it moves. It makes itself remembered with almost every movement of my hand. It’s like it’s the ring’s way of talking. But I don’t know what it’s trying to say.

My mom had this goal for years to give me this ring. She would say, “I’m going to get you a one-carat diamond ring someday.” I’d ask her why, and her response was always the same: “It’s the one thing I can leave you as a legacy.” It’s a long story of how I actually came to be wearing it, so I’ll leave that for another telling. For now, my point is that I don’t need, and indeed never wanted, a ring for a legacy. I appreciate and fully acknowledge her desire to leave something valuable and lasting as a tangible reminder of her life and love. But it is that very desire—that most intangible thing—that I crown as her legacy. It is her constant, consistent proffering of her love to me that is a gift no pile of money nor zeros before the decimal can touch.

A friend asked me about the ring yesterday, and it’s always with a touch of bittersweetness that I speak of it. I wish my mom could be convinced of her perdurable worth to me even if she were a penniless, wizened, old soul with no name. I don’t bring that up though. I just say it was a Christmas gift from my mom.

Just minutes after presenting the ring to me, she cautioned me to keep the paperwork in a safe place because when she saves up enough money again, she can give back this ring to the store in trade for a two-carat.

Oy.