A Tale of Three Rings.

A harp dinner conversation with Uncle Seumas about birthstones sparked Doodle to ask to see a sapphire ( his birthstone) in person. The only one I have is in a ring with a long story.

My mother had a love/hate relationship with her engagement ring. She and my Dad were married while she was still in high school, I came along a couple of years later. Her engagement ring was a smallish simple solitaire in a white gold band, set up on high prongs. She wore it proudly. My Dad bought the ring on credit at a local jeweler and she wrote a check to them every week for the first several years of their marriage. It irked her to no end to be paying for the ring after the wedding. Their income was typical for a young married couple, those few dollars every week hurt. She never let him forget that in fact, she paid off the ring.

When I was in kindergarten we lived in Hawaii. One day at the Ala Moana Shopping Center she looked down and the diamond was gone. I was sitting in the stall next to her in the bathroom. She cried and cried. We looked but never found it. My parents were not in a position to replace the diamond and my Mom was very sad about it. Later in the week I went with some friends to the base exchange on Ford Island. I put a quarter in the gumball machine and out came the little plastic ball. Inside was a gorgeous, to my 6 year old eyes, "diamond" ring. I took it home and gave to my mom. I remember being very proud that I could make her not be sad anymore. Of course she cried, and she wore it. A .25 gumball ring. Eventually the band broke and she put it away. She pinned it to the frame of their wedding portrait where it remained until she died. For 33 years the tiny plastic ring hung in her bedroom.

A few years after the gumball ring, we were living in Australia. On the west coast, smack in the middle of nowhere. One of my Dad's many side jobs was to design and hang the lighting for regional gem shows. I used to go with him and play in the vats of stones. My favourite game was to try and line up the opals to make continents. Turning the large stones over and over until I could imagine the image of a coastline. Then I would use the rougher gems as boats and sail them around. Eventually all the stones were counted and lined up in the fancy velvet lined cases under bright lights, making them look even more magical. The company that ran the gem shows could not pay my Dad, an American, in cash. They paid him in stones. Every show he would come home with a tiny velvet bag filled with fire opals, Queensland sapphires, tigers eye, amethysts, tiny diamonds and others. He gave most of the stones away to friends or relatives but he kept one sapphire.

In 1976 when we came back to the states he had a sapphire and diamond replacement engagement ring made at Davidson and Licht jewelers. I was in love with it! This time he paid cash. They were at long last financially secure enough to replace her ring. She wore it every day until he died. I don't know why she took it off then.

So, when the subject of sapphires came up, I went looking for her ring. It is not huge, or in fact very valuable, but it has a big story. I gave the ring to Doodle to hold and told him the whole story of his grandparents and what that ring meant to them. What it was like to lose something so valuable and not be able to replace it. He put that tiny ring on his finger and it fit. My mother was indeed dainty!( in stature only, I don't know a soul who would have called her dainty to her face!) Then we took all three rings, the empty setting, the gumball ring and the sapphire ring to the bank safe deposit box. It can stay there until he wants it again, it's his. A little bit of history from his missing grandparents. I hope someday he will give it to someone he loves.