Contributed by P. Enamé
I never really put a lot of thought into this wedding ring, until my marriage ended, suddenly. It came with a history, a history I knew, but I didn’t dwell on it.
After the separation, but long before the divorce was final, I hung that ring on my Buddha statue that sits in my bedroom window. In his fingers, it has hung there for years now. But today, for whatever reason, I’ve decided to rid myself of it, and rid it of any bad karma that might be invested in it.
Robert, my best friend who passed away two decades ago, he gave her the ring. To give to me, he gave it to her. She couldn’t afford to get one for me, so he helped her. So the ring represented his hope in us. He’d had a divorce, but no kids. Still, he regretted it. He told me about his regret. We were very close.
So I’ve held on to that ring, with Buddha’s hand, not mine. I thought it was a fitting philosophy to handle the complex emotions that the ring came to mean for me.
Most times I didn’t think about it at all. Most times I’ve been too busy with other things, to remember how my friend’s hopes, that he invested in our marriage right before his passing, were misplaced. He loved us both, and we loved him. When he died, we cried together.
I’ve wondered, too, if his ring were a symbol of Robert’s own failed marriage, and that it might have been imbued with some potent symbolism - because I knew of Robert’s regrets over his divorce.
There have been times, over the last 8 years, where I could have used the money, but I chose not to sell it then. Now, I’m financially stabilized, and I really don’t need the money, so I don’t feel like I’m betraying the history that’s held in that ring. It always felt wrong, like something ethereal might unravel if I were to rid myself of it for the wrong reason... in the wrong way.
I certainly don’t blame Robert for wanting that ring to have another chance. He’d held on to it, after all, following his divorce. When I met him, that divorce was old news. By the time he gave her that ring to give to me, he’d held on to it for several more years. Clearly, he wanted that symbol to be renewed.
It’s such a complicated maze of sentiment, but I’ve decided that selling it, when I don’t need the money, is the only way to renew it. Whoever ends up with this ring shouldn’t know a thing about it. To them, it should be a new thing, not someone else’s ring. There’s no way that I can give it to anyone without it coming from me, so I’ll sell it, strip it of any connection to me, or Robert.
Robert was so smart, and so moral. He had a sense of right and wrong that he was fully prepared to stand up for, even when his body was weak, nearing the end. He was an inspiration to me, and to her I think. That ring was his hope in us, and his hope that we would have a better outcome than he did.
I’ve let the ring hang there, for years now, waiting for the right time. Buddha’s hand hasn’t changed, hasn’t moved, and never held on tightly to it. It was on Buddha’s hand almost as long as it was on mine. He held it for me, but let go easier than I did.
Today I let go.
October 5, 2020