Finding The Wave Again

 

You don't really understand human nature unless you know why a child on a merry-go-round will wave at his parents every time around - and why his parents will always wave back.  ~William D. Tammeus

I don’t recall waving to my parents from a merry-go-round, but I do recall, every single time I left home as a child, whether to go to school or to play at a friend’s house, one or the other (sometimes both) standing at the front door waving goodbye.  Then as an adult, leaving each other’s houses, still waving from the doorway.     

Without a doubt, I’d come to take that gesture for granted, as evidenced by how terribly much I’ve missed in the three years since they both passed away.  This past month, I’ve been surprised and fortunate to be blessed with a little ease to the ache of missing that particular gesture.      

Mom & Dad's bands

Along with waves from the doorway, I grew up hearing the story of how my parents had not taken their wedding bands off since the day they placed them on each other’s hands, May 20, 1949.  Refused to remove them for surgeries, job related hazards or during troubled times in their marriage.  That story, that gesture of love and devotion, resonated so deeply with me that I have not taken mine off since March 19, 1983, when Steven placed mine on my hand (and barring a hand soaping incident or two for Steve, neither has he).    



In 1990, my mother had a bicycle accident and broke her left wrist.  The emergency room doctor gave her the choice of cutting the band off or losing her finger. After much discussion with my father, she did finally allow them to cut it off, and replaced it as soon as she could with her second band which didn’t leave her finger until the day she died. 

Early in their marriage, my dad worked for Addressograph Multigraph and during a service call, had his hand caught in a machine.  It did serious damage to his thumb and bent his band considerably, but he never removed his either. 

So of all the many possessions that came and went in my parents’ lives, their rings were what I viewed as their constant.  When they passed three years ago, and us five kids sorted their possessions, their rings were what I most desired and was graciously granted. 



I always knew that I wouldn’t wear either band or my mother’s engagement ring as stand-alone pieces, but also did not want them to simply sit in my jewelry box to be looked at every now and again. They’d meant too much to sit unused, collecting dust.

Yet for three years, they did just that.  And then I took them out of my jewelry box and rings in hand, went to my jeweler friend, Reg Shopp of deSignet International.    I explained the history of the pieces and what I wanted to do. 



“I have this thing with the number three,” I told him.  “It’s been three years since my parents died.  And I have their wedding bands and my mom’s engagement ring which has three diamonds in it.  There’s the relationship of myself and my parents as a group of three.  And then there’s the group of three that is myself, my husband and our son.  I’m envisioning melting it all down, making a braid of three strands of gold and making three pieces, a ring and a pair of earrings, to represent all those symbolic groups of three, intertwined.”

New ring and earrings

A few months later, when I picked up the finished pieces, I was overcome by the intense connection I felt to my mom and dad as I slid on the ring.  The beauty of it took my breath away, but the significance behind what I now wore on my hand, the near 60 years of my parent’s marriage, their love and commitment woven together, was overwhelming.

Any doubt I had about changing the pieces vanished as I thought of what they’d worn separately all those years, being melted down and brought together.  

I wear the three pieces every day now.  And every once in a while, I walk past a mirror and glimpse the earrings, or glance down as a ray of light dances across the face of the ring, and feel the warm caress of a gentle wave from the doorway.