The Diamond Rose Ring

                                                                           

The Diamond Rose Ring

            It was tradition in our home to get a birthstone ring for your sixteenth birthday.  My birthday is in April, my birthstone is a diamond.  I did not want my dad to buy me my first diamond ring that was for Mr. Right to do.  Dad and I agreed that he would get me a sapphire ring instead.  For months we looked at several beautiful sapphire rings. Within reason he didn’t care about cost, I was supposed to get anything I wanted; anything that made me feel special.  I was so excited that he valued me enough to buy me the ring of my dreams like he had done for both of my sisters only a few years earlier. On my sixteenth birthday we were in Naples Florida.  My father cooked a traditional Dorothy birthday meal; lasagna, strawberry jello salad and a special strawberry jello angel food cake for dessert.  I remember my cake was shaped like a mixing bowl because he did not have the proper pan in our condo and improvised.  I had always felt special having my daddy cook my festive meal. 

            “Dorothy, go into my bathroom and get a towel for me.”

            I stood up and quickly ran to the bathroom to grab him a towel. “Wait. What is this little box on the counter with a bow?” I thought to myself.  Dad had always had funny ways of giving me special gifts.  Once he had yelled at me for not closing the garage door and told me to go shut it right now before someone stole one of our bikes.  I had argued at the time, that I hadn’t left the door open, and begrudgingly went to close the door.  “Wait one minute, whose is the blue ten speed bike in the garage?”  Dad had started laughing, he had gotten me, and the bike was a present for me.  Back to the bathroom, I stood there and picked up the little bow wrapped package, I knew it was mine.  Slowly I opened it; my heart was racing to see which of the sapphire rings dad had chosen.   “What is this?” All of a sudden I felt sick.  How was I going to pretend that I liked my birthday ring? It wasn’t any of the ones we had looked at; instead a miniscule diamond ring in a cheap gold setting sadly stared up at me, as it wasn’t large enough to twinkle. Who would ever buy a tomboy a rose petal shaped ring? I knew that my father’s second wife had once again changed my dad’s plan.  She hated him spending money on me.  Dad should have put his foot down, after all, I was his youngest daughter and this was the last ring he would ever buy for one of us.  My dad had spared no expense buying my sisters both big beautiful rings; mine had maybe costs 50 bucks. More a present from a high school boy to his prom date than a special gift from my dad. My sister Cece had even lost her first one, which dad quickly replaced with an even better ring.  If jewelry is supposed to show how much you care, I guess I was shown.

The Opal Ring

            He was six foot three inches tall and had beautiful blue eyes; I am sure that it was his height that drew me to him.  I needed a strong man to protect me.  A couple of weeks earlier we had broken up.  It was not easy for me to do. He had been my first and I had thought we would get married and live happily ever after.  We broke up two weeks before Christmas, as he had already bought my gift he decided to go ahead and give me the ring.

            “Dor, come over to my house after work today.”

            “Why, we aren’t even dating anymore?”

            “I got you something for Christmas and I want to give it to you.”

            Great. I knew what that meant; he would give me a gift, and then he would expect me to give him a “gift.”  “Whatever… see ya at your parents at 9:00.”

            I had bought him a little pot made by the local Indians in Tucson.  I had maybe spent twenty bucks. We were not dating and I really did not want to get him a gift, but he kept mentioning a “special” gift for Christmas.  After I got to his parents house we went for a ride in his old light blue Ford pick-up truck.  We parked in the same park we always had, all too familiar to us and the location of several of our late night rendezvous.

            “Dor, I want you to have this.” He passed me a small wrapped box. “Look, I know we have had some hard times, but I want and need you in my life.  Please wear this and always remember me. You know, what we had and have.  I really do not want to lose you.” 

            My mind had started racing.  I remembered the day when we were sitting on his mother’s couch watching General Hospital, and I had somehow made him mad.  Normally we would just yell at each other. Our argument this time had taken a more physical route, and I had ended up being smacked around the head a few times.

            “Hey, what did you do that for?”

            “You made me mad, and you deserved it.”

            “Are you kidding me?  No one ever deserves to be hit in the head!”

            From that day on, I knew I needed to break up with him.  It was so hard.  I had thought that I would marry him.  But I could never marry a man who was willing to hit me.

            Back in the truck Bill had leaned over for a big kiss, it was not really a kiss he wanted, more like a reward for buying me a nice opal ring. I felt indebted to him over a piece of jewelry.  His plan worked and I started dating him again.  I was addicted to him and his unhealthy ways.  For some strange reason, I loved him. 

The Diamond Ring

            We walked into Andrews Jewelers in East Brook Mall.  Brian and I looked at all the rings in the case.  At first, I had tried to be humble and said I only wanted a gold band.  Brian wanted me to get a ring with more value than that.  In his eyes I was worth it.

            The lady at the counter greeted us, “Hello kids, how I can help you?”

            “We are here to pick out an engagement ring.  Could you please help us?”

            Mrs. Andrews personally waited on us.  We didn’t know it at the time, but we were buying a ring in a high end store.  We were too young and too ignorant to know which store would be the best for buying the highest quality ring for the lowest price. In reality we didn’t know anything about relationships or life either, just like ring shopping, we were just figuring out as we went and hoping for the best.

            “We don’t know anything about buying rings, could you please explain to us, what we should be looking for in a diamond?”

            The kind old lady started explaining the different cuts, clarity and color to us. 

            “If you want this ring to be an investment, then you must buy one that has good clarity.  I suggest VS1 to VVS1.   The color should be an E, F, or D.” She held up a chart to help us understand what she was talking about. 

            Brian and I settled on a 26 point round diamond with VVS1 clarity and F color. The woman showed us how my ring hardly contained any flaws even though cheaper ones normally do; she even offered us a two hundred dollar discount because she knew were young and just starting out. 

            “If you make twelve simple payments of fifty dollars a month, you will have the ring paid off in one year.”

            I remember Brian and I looked at each other and realized that a payment plan was the only way we would be able to afford an expensive ring.  After all, Brian only made five-fifty an hour at the time; we had no business buying a six hundred dollar ring. This ring cost more than a month’s wage, and all things considered according to common advice regarding “responsibility” we really should have stuck with a gold band.  But this was my ring, the ring that I would wear every day.  It was important to me that I got a really nice ring, and not a chintzy one or a ring for the wrong reasons.  This ring would be a symbol on my finger declaring that I was “valuable.”  I loved my special ring, and although we couldn’t really afford it, felt loved.

The German  Ring

            It was our fifteenth wedding anniversary and we were living in Munich Germany.  Brian asked me to go down to the Jewelry store on Implerstrasse to look at a special German wedding ring.  He had found one about a week earlier at the store next to Penny Mart, but was worried that I would not like it, because it was gold and white gold band with only a small diamond set flush in the metal.  In Germany, people normally wear simple gold matching bands.  They do not understand why Americans spend so much on a diamond ring, when a proper wedding band is always simple gold.  The gold band on my diamond ring from fifteen years earlier had worn thin and cracked in half from constant wear, so I had not been wearing a ring for the last two years.  We had wanted to get it fixed, but we did not trust the lower class jewelers in our area, and we were too embarrassed go into the ultra fancy stores on  Maxamillianstrasse that sold opulent jewelry to the super rich.

            “Gruβ Got”

            “Gruβ Got, Wie kann ich Ihnen helfen?”

            “Do you speak English?”

            “Yes, I do. How can I assist you?”

            “May I please look at this ring?”  Brian pointed to a gold ring with a white gold swish that wrapped around a modest inset diamond.

            “This one sir?”

            “Yes, thank you.” 

Brian slipped the simple German wedding ring on my hand and looked at my face for a reaction.

“What do you think?”

            “I love it!”

            “The white gold, does it bother you?  I would have bought it for you as a surprise, but I know you, and how much you dislike white gold. I looked down at my finger and started laughing, “Brian, many of my friends are requiring their husband to buy them a bigger diamond at their fifteenth anniversary. Look what I am getting. I am so excited that I have a real German wedding band.  I can’t wait to see the look on my friends faces when they see my new ring!” 

            Brian leaned over, “Dorothy, you know, if I had a chance to marry you again, I would.”

            I smiled at him and kissed him, “Thank you baby, I would marry you again in a heartbeat.”