Recyclin’ Lightnin’

Ever since Bunny died, I’ve been reluctant to wear my wedding and engagement rings.   They were too painful a reminder that he was gone.  For the first few days, I tried switching them to my right hand, but then they really were a constant reminder, because I wasn’t accustomed to having them on that hand.  I wore them for the memorial--which felt like the right thing to do--and as I put them away, I realized that I was letting perfectly good diamonds go to waste in a drawer.

I’m generally not wasteful by nature, and my love of bling is legendary—plus, diamond is my birthstone!   I decided to convert my old rings into a new one.  I’d recently read about newly-divorced women melting down their old rings and turning them into happy new ones.  I decided to do the same.   As an aside, my love of bling began, appropriately enough, as a result of Aunt Ruth’s garage sale hauls.  She would send us cocktail dresses and other fancy attire, which we would put to use in our dress-up games. 

My first, much-beloved cocktail dress was a shiny, ice-blue satin number, with blue rhinestone buttons and embellishments.   I was about six when I got it, so it was more like an evening gown on me.  It was the prettiest thing I’d ever seen!  My sisters and I called it the Lightnin’ Dress.  For those of you who didn’t grow up in the South, lightnin’ is the electrical atmospheric disturbance that often accompanies thunder.  And the insects you catch in jars during summer nights aren’t fireflies, dammit—they’re Lightnin’ Bugs!   From that point on, I wanted lightnin’ every chance I could get it.

Back to the present: I found a jeweler who was up to the task, so Trinity and I went over there today to bring him my three rings and Bunny’s three rings to melt down and recast into a new one, using my five diamonds.  Let me explain why we had six rings:  I had a thin, gold band and an oval solitaire to start, and Bunny had his first gold band.  Bunny’s first band was cut off him during an emergency room visit for an asthma attack.  We were in Atlanta at the time.   He went ring-less for years after, until he got ready to move to Florida.  At that point, he insisted I get another band for him.

“Why?  You haven’t worn a ring for years.”

“Because you’re not going to be down there with me, and I want all the other deauxs to know that I’m taken.”   Aw!  He was so earnest, I didn’t have the heart to tease him.  In hindsight, I realize he was anxious about being alone, even for a little while.

That was Bunny’s ring #2, which he lost in less than a year.  I got ring #3 and later found the second one.  During the trip to get #3, I got a ring wrap, with two diamonds on either side, for my solitaire.  This is the whole trove of our combined marriage symbols (badly in need of cleaning):

I explained what I wanted done, and why, and the jeweler showed us several different settings.  I found one I really liked, then I had a brainstorm.

“Let’s make my ring with the three larger diamonds, and take the other two diamonds and make pendants for the two granddaughters.”  Trinity really took an interest at that point.   The thought of dying didn’t bother Bunny so much, but the thought that Sarita wouldn’t remember him did.  He really identified with Sarita, and if he had one regret, it was that he hadn’t gotten to spend as much time with her as he had with Trinity.

The jeweler pulled out a book to show Trinity the pendant styles, and she found one that we both really liked.  She pointed it out to him.

“That’s the rabbit-ear setting,”  he said.  How perfect is that?  Sold!

He made a sketch of my new ring, then started taking my old ones apart to weigh and measure them.  The solitaire was first.  He took out the stone and examined it with his loupe.

“Wow!  This is a very high quality stone; one of the best I’ve seen!”  Then he put it on the scale as I told him an abbreviated version of the story.

“Yes, he had it custom-made.”  Bunny and I started dating in mid-June of 1985.  Within two weeks, he asked me to marry him.   By November, he’d enlisted one of his professors to make the ring.  This professor made jewelry as a hobby, and had access to wholesale diamonds.  I remember stopping by the professor’s house so Bunny could pay for the stone.  Bunny told me at the time that it was a very high-grade stone.  I got a really bad vibe from the guy, but Bunny thought highly of him.  As it turned out, I was right—he later went to jail for perving on a girl.

Bunny’s plan was to give me the ring on Thanksgiving weekend.  I wouldn’t know how or when, but that was the timeframe.   I woke up in pain Thanksgiving morning, ate very little of the dinner my mother had prepared, got sick from what I did eat, and was undergoing emergency surgery that night. 

I really don’t remember the exact moment he slipped the ring on my finger—I’d gotten so sick from the anesthesia that I’d been up all night.  Plus, the nurses (who were my co-workers) made sure I wasn’t in pain.   At some point, when I was fully conscious and lucid, I realized that I was engaged.    It was a beautiful ring, but everyone I tried to show it to had already seen it—Bunny had shown it around before he’d given it to me!  He’d even shown it to my cousin’s fiance’, who was in one of his college classes.  We were married on May 31, 1986.

Seeing the stone loose from its setting brought all those memories flooding back.  Fat, heavy tears flowed involuntarily down my cheeks, splattering onto the glass case below me.  Then I started thinking of Trinity and Sarita wearing their pendants, maybe even on their own wedding days.  What better way to begin a marriage than by wearing a pendant made from jewelry that came from your grandparents’ happy marriage? OMG!  Can you hear the violins yet? 

The poor jeweler, seeing the sudden storm brewing before him, looked genuinely distressed.  He quickly brought me a roll of paper towels (apparently jewelers don’t keep Kleenex at the ready), and consoled me on my loss.   I assured him I would be alright, and dried up soon enough. 

In a few weeks, I’ll have my new lightnin’ ring.  Just in time for my anniversary.