The Rings

It must have been about 6:30 this morning that my phone rang next to my bed and woke me from a sound slumber. I am recovering from a cold, and I had taken some NyQuil to help me sleep without waking up in a coughing fit in the middle of the night.

I rolled over and rubbed the fog out of my eyes, wondering what would prompt a call this early on a Sunday morning. It can’t be good. That thought was reaffirmed when I saw the number was that of Featherstone Assisted Living home where I had left Carolyn a few hours ago. She must have had another oxygen deficit attack.

No, not this time. The nurse was very calm and reassuring. This time it was more of a courtesy call. The nurse had noticed that Carolyn’s wedding band was becoming uncomfortably tight and her finger was turning dark. She had called the hospice nurse, and they were coming out to see if the rings could be removed. They wanted to make sure that I would not be surprised to find her without rings later that morning.

I thanked her for calling to let me know, and told her I would be in later to pick up the rings. Then I went back to sleep.

But I didn’t. As I lay there, I became more awake by the minute, and after about ten or so minutes a light flashed on in my mind. 

I thought, “I put those rings on her hand forty eight years ago. I should be the one taking them off.”

I quickly sat up, put on my clothes and ran a comb through my hair. I opened my bicycle toolbox and took out a pair of small diagonal cutters I use for trimming brake cables and put them in my back pocket. I walked out to the car, and drove on the deserted streets of Durant over to Carolyn’s home.

There was no activity showing out front, so I went to the back and talked to the nurse. She said the hospice nurse had not yet arrived, but they had given Carolyn some Valium to calm her down, because she was up all night walking around the halls again. I went into her room and found her asleep. Her fingers were greasy where the staff had tried to remove the rings, with no success. 

I woke her up, and she groggily came awake as I told her what I intended to do. She agreed, and watched as I carefully slipped the tip of the cutters under the rings, one at a time. and clipped them free. I spread them out a bit, and slid them off. Spying the birthstone ring on her other hand, I took it off without cutting it. It was tight, but It came off without too much difficulty. 

I spent a few minutes talking to her, reassuring her that I still loved her, and that I would take good care of the rings. I caressed her fingers to make sure the circulation was good. She closed her eyes and relaxed. I left her sleeping again, and went out in the hall to show the nurse and make sure she noted that I had removed the rings and had them in my possession.

She said she would call the hospice people and explain that the rings were off and that Carolyn was sleeping now.

Those rings always meant far more to Carolyn than they did to me. I was raised in a strict religion that equated wearing gold rings with some kind of moral idolatry, and wedding bands were included in the prohibition. She was raised in the South, mostly Baptist, and the rings were the proof to the world that you were actually married. We needed to talk about it, but I was still too dumb to know it.

Soon after she had agreed to marry me, and we had moved together as a couple, we had our first big argument, all about the rings. 

She and I and my brother John were coming out of a store in Huntington Beach—maybe a K-Mart—and John came up  and handed me some rings that Carolyn had thrown down on the pavement behind me. I had missed the whole thing, including that she was mad about something. John had to tell me she was pissed. Talk about clueless!

When we were alone back at the house, I presented her with the rings she had ditched, and asked what was bothering her. She exploded in anger that I had made a large purchase, (a mower, I think) and she was waiting for me to buy her a ring. The rings she threw away were the ones from her former husband.

Well! What a revelation to me! We were raised in different worlds, so if one thing was going to have to change, we needed to communicate. I apologized for not suspecting, and promised to take her down to the jewelers and we would pick out the rings. 

We did it within the week, and she has worn those rings ever since.

To me, the rings mean nothing—the promise means everything. I promised to love her and stay true to her forever, and I meant it. I don’t wear any ring, and never have. It is just a symbol of the promise made, and if you don’t keep the promise, what difference will the ring make?

Now and then I read in novels or see movies where people take off their rings or turn their spouse’s picture to the wall while they take another lover to bed. The whole scene baffles me. My slightly autistic, literal mind just does not grasp the concept. Either you keep the promise, or you don’t make the promise.

I have known couples with open marriages, and I have no problem with it, for them. It’s not my choice, but if it works for them, at least they are honest. Carolyn and I have been invited to join key clubs and other wife swapping groups back in the Sixties and Seventies, but we liked the relationship we had, and saw no reason to change it. 

What research I can find, including Masters and Johnson’s book “The Pleasure Bond” shows that few marriages last more than a few years unless they share exclusive sexual privilege only to each other.

So as at the beginning, this marriage is now without rings, but still with the love and commitment promised then. I cannot imagine not loving her. I know the day will come, but I am hanging on as long as I can.