Thoughts from a Thinking Girl

This week is the anniversary of my maternal grandmother’s death. Also of her birthday, since they were just one day apart, her life opening and closing in a full circle, which seems somehow apt for a full-bodied, ample-bosomed woman who knew every kind of love and loss by the time it was her time to go. I don’t know anyone I could describe today as having an “ample bosom” but my grandmother’s generation appreciated  roundness, softness and plumpness. It’s the Boomers who will become trim, health-conscious, bony and anorectic grandmothers, and I hope they have a plan for how to provide the ampleness of the WWII generation’s bosoms. Because I loved that ampleness.

Had she been alive and I’d lit candles on her cake, rather than a memorial candle, she would have been 99 years old. She lives forever in the stone of my wedding ring, purchased for her by my grandfather probably close to 80 years ago. Every time I take my ring in to be cleaned, or to tighten a prong that holds the diamond, the sales clerk examines the stone closely, takes on a very serious look, pulls out a pink slip of paper with a generic diagram of a diamond, and delivers what he or she thinks is going to be very bad news, drawing with slow, careful, belabored detail every imperfection, scratch, and missing piece of the stone, delivering the X-ray and diagnosis of serious mortality. The message is layered. The personal: “Your stone has far less value than you think, young lady, for it is damaged and flawed,” followed closely by the sub-audible disdain,  sent below the hearing range of my husband, in the same sound range that can draw dogs back from leaps of freedom, “What kind of louse would give someone an imperfect, marred stone and make you think it was actually valuable?” And finally the legal: “We didn’t do it – it was wrecked before we ever saw it and you cannot file a claim for damages.”

The first few times this happened, the disclaimer attitude spoiled the joy of getting my ring cleaned and shined. I love this ring. I love this stone. Why wouldn’t a stone show some wear and tear, even if I’d only had it for the length of my marriage? But this stone has lasted longer than that, longer than the marriage it first belonged to. The jewelry store clerks don’t get it. They think a stone should be perfect, the clarity and shine and color of the absolute highest numerical value. But that can only be found in a pristine, never-worn stone, not one that has heralded two good marriages. I will be happy to report back in 20 years or so that this stone will have prevailed over good marriages for over a century.

I don’t want a “perfect” stone that sparkles under a jeweler’s loupe, yet belongs to a stale, bitter, boring marriage, focused more on show than on what’s happening under the surface – the way two people hold together after some dings and minor dents. My stone, and my grandparents to whose marriage it belonged, were made of the hardest natural substances. I wear my slightly flawed stone, in my slightly flawed life, carrying on the lasting legacy of Joe-and-Florence. It’s an ample stone, filled with more love and shine than a cracked little piece of carbon ought to hold.