A diamond, it is said, is a girl's best friend. That's maybe because diamonds are so beautiful but mostly, of course, because of their symbolism.
Mike didn't do a down-on-the-knees proposal to ask me to marry him; we just gradually started talking about getting married. It seemed a natural step to our growing closeness and fondness for one another. I was just thinking about being married and having a wedding, nothing beyond that, when Mike said something about the ring.
A ring!? What a wonderful idea. Every engaged woman should have a ring of some kind.
Wikipedia tells us that a ring has been a symbol of marriage for millennia. Marriage ceremonies among the ancient Egyptians, 3,000 years ago, used rings made of hemp or reeds, although those materials defied the "forever" symbol of the ring, so rings were soon being made of bone, leather, or ivory. The Romans used rings in marriage ceremonies, as did Europeans from ancient to modern times. In colonial America, a prudent and parsimonious Puritan husband-to-be would give his beloved not a frivolous ring but a practical thimble. I'm sure they were beautiful thimbles, but I'm not surprised that the bride-to-be cut off the top of her thimble and wore it as a ring.
It wasn't a thimble that Mike had in mind.
The jeweler for my ring would be my son's best friend from their years together at the Atlanta College of Art, he who had made my son's and daughter-in-law's rings. Mike would participate in designing the ring. I wouldn't know what it would be like, except that Mike would use the diamonds from my mother's engagement ring, which I had inherited. The diamonds and design went off to Dave Giulietti, the jeweler, and the wait began.
At first I thought maybe I would get the ring for Christmas, but Mike told me Dave was too busy with other orders to finish mine before Christmas. Christmas came and went, and the time dragged on. I began to hint that it would be nice to get the ring enough ahead of the wedding that I would have fun showing it off.
I wasn't too surprised, then, that before Mike and I went out for dinner on Valentine's Day, he sat down next to me, said something breezy about really meaning this thing about getting married, and gave me a little square box. In it was a beautiful and unusual engagement ring, with diamonds in a large circle of gold on an intricately engraved band. It throws darts of color with the slightest movement. I am a happy fiancée, and an official one, and I am loving showing off my meaningful diamond ring.
The diamond's old
ReplyDeleteThe ring is new.
The story's old
but still rings true.