what it's worth

Jeff proposed to me over the phone, Thanksgiving Day of 2001. It wasn't precicely the way I'd imagined it...he didn't pop the question. It was more that we were both talking about how done we were with being apart all the time and what we could do about that. When I ended the phone call that day, I walked out of my parents' spare bedroom and announced that I was engaged. My mom was thrilled, my dad fell into a deep depression, not because he didn't love Jeff but because he knew that marriage would take me far away for a long time. He was sad to lose me.

I spent a good part of my engagement without a ring because Jeff was in Japan and obviously could not fly home to propose to me properly. I was totally fine with that and told him I did not need or even want a ring. What I wanted was to marry him and have a plain gold band around my finger for the rest of my life. I didn't care about diamonds; I only wanted to be with my best friend. However, other people REALLY cared about my ring...or lack thereof. When Jeff asked what I'd want in an engagement ring, I said "Oh, a square solitaire in a plain gold band, with a matching plain band as my wedding ring. Maybe some filigree but nothing fancy. Oh, and my dad says it has to be bigger than my mom's so..." When Jeff asked how big my mother's engagement ring was, I told him and he hung up to go questing. A few days later he called me back. "Do you know how expensive a 5 carat ring is?!" he shouted, panicked. "And your dad wants me to get bigger than that? I can't afford it!" I tried hard to stop laughing and replied " POINT five carats, darling. POINT five. As in half a carat. And no, you don't have to make it bigger. I think (I hope!) Dad was kidding. Remember, I don't want anything too ostentatious."

Time passed and Jeff came home for leave at the end of March 2002. One night, after dinner and games at my parents' house, he asked me to go for a walk with him. In a puddle of lamplight, he got down on one knee and asked "Linda Beth Walter, will you marry me?" In his hand was a box filled with a sparkly something that I could not have cared less about. Of course I said yes and hugged and kissed him...and then he slid the ring onto my finger.

I was shocked. My brand-new enagagement ring did indeed have a square diamond...but that diamond was not alone. It was surrounded by a triple band of rectangular diamonds on each side. The entire front of my finger glittered and I could actually feel the weight of it on my finger. It was huge, it was crammed full of gems...and I was mortified. It was ostentaion personified. I couldn't tell him that I didn't like it; he'd obviously spent a ton of money on it. And when he said he'd worked with the jewler to design it, I knew I'd be wearing that ring for the rest of my life. I wondered what people would think of me. I was so afraid they'd think I was a stereotypical Jersey princess who wouldn't be satisfied with anything plain. I was afraid people would think I was high maintenance. I was afraid I'd lose it, that it would fly off my finger and I felt like I wasn't ready for the responsibility that came with such an enormous ring. I mourned the ring I'd had pictured in my mind. But really, deep down inside, I didn't feel like I deserved all those diamonds. I was just a simple girl, raised in a simple way. Nobody special. Certainly no one who deserved the ring I was currently wearing.

I liked the wedding band more. It matched the engagement ring but was smaller, "just" a band with two rows of rectangular diamonds, interspersed with tiny circular diamond chips. Taken together, the set is blinding. But the wedding band seemed modest and I wished I could have worn that until September instead.

September came and we got married. I'd come to a truce with my rings. I'd gotten used to the idea that they were mine and I was no longer quite so frightened that I'd lose one. (We got them sized smaller, that helped.) When Jeff and I arrived in Nebraska, he purchased me a plain gold wedding band that I wore most days to work, unwilling to risk my valuable rings to a bedpan or a soiled linen.

Days passed. Jeff got sicker. Life came at us hard and fast with more sorrow than we ever dreamed possible. In the midst of trying to keep Jeff alive and functioning, I didn't think much about the rings. I thought about hospital visiting hours, who would stay with Jeff when I had to work, how to encourage him to keep on breathing each day in spite of all that he was going through and what we might do to keep all our bills paid. I thought about medicines and their side effects, developed a ranking system for the various ERs we visited and cooked meals to bring to my husband at the hospital. I kept family and friends updated, cried every night, and prayed for the strength to go on.

And somehow those prayers were answered. Life went on, getting gradually better, until one day we were parents, the greatest miracle of many that have happened to our family. And then one day I woke to the realization that I love my wedding rings. I love the design of them, love the way they break the light into rainbows on the ceiling and walls when the sunlight hits them. I love the weight of them on my finger and the way they shout to the world that the man who gave them to me loves me and I love him in return. I love that he made them especially for me. And I realized too that this growing process we've had, me and my rings, is reflective of myself and my marriage. From the time he proposed on the phone right up through this current moment, Jeff has felt that I am worth every diamond in those rings. I didn't earn it; he felt that way about me from the beginning. He thinks that I am priceless, beautiful and strong. It's taken me all this time to understand and accept that love from him.

I'm pretty excited to see where my rings and my love take me next.