A Circle is Round

A circle is round
It has no end
That's how long I want to be your friend

This old Girl Scout ditty came to mind the second time my husband's wedding ring shattered. Yes. The second time, in 8 months of marriage. We were excited about the ring we chose over a year ago, it was a nice complement to my engagement ring, and the white gold braiding at the center matched the white gold flowers in my ring. A few months of wear, however, loosened that white gold braid so that soon his ring was a mess of unattached rings, like a weird wearable jigsaw puzzle.  Thinking perhaps work was doing the damage as the life of a chef means one's hands are constantly greased, constantly washing, we returned the ring for a new one and decided he'd wear the second one only on the weekends, opting for a silicone $5 ring for the workday.

The second ring broke faster than the first, the white gold braid actually snapping in half this time.  It was then that the old Girl Scout song popped into my mind.  The circle was no longer round, it had an end, and I'm English major enough to loathe the foreboding in that metaphor for marriage.

It was after this second destruction, frustrated with the necessity of purchasing a new ring, and disappointed that the ring blessed by his vows wouldn't take my husband through life, that my dad offered my Grandfather's ring as a potential replacement. My Grandmother's estate was newly settled, the ring newly passed along to my dad, and though in need of a refitting, was altogether perfect.

I'm a sentimental woman. And although I don't like to think of myself as materialistic, I am a romantic and attached to the doodahs of life that last long enough to carry memories with them.  It's why the wearing of my husband's late mother's ring means so much to me. The ring underlines the promise, bolds it, reminds me daily that the vows we took that day weren't just words or contractual speech, but were promises written in blood and gold and years.

And now he carries the same. And it struck me that we carry that golden weight similarly, in that I never knew his mother and he never knew my grandfather.  But I can see the imprint of his mother's love in the way he loves his family, the way he smiles at her memory, the guarded softness in his voice when he misses her. And I think he feels the same in me, knows the man that was my grandfather through the strength in my father's handshake, the stories told of his preaching life, his trip to Brazil, and the brief glimpse he had of my Grandmother, the wife of the first wearer of his ring, the weekend he proposed.

There's a special humility in wearing the ring of someone loved, someone who shaped your spouse. We must live up to the love etched in that gold. We must cherish that circle, that roundness of memory and life, and forbid it to end.

A circle is round
It has no end
And that's how long I want to be your friend