The Anniversary of the Ring

Kristina Miggiani — The Anniversary of the Ring

I lost my fiance three weeks before we were due to be married. I went from planning a wedding to planning a funeral. And after having to take so many decisions about coffins and urns and the clothes to send him to the next life in, I just didn’t have any bandwidth left to decide what to do with my unworn engagement and wedding rings. 

It was only on the five-month anniversary of his death when I woke up in what was once our bed and said, Today’s the day. Today’s the day I venture to Mount Doom, which kind of looks like a shopping mall on Black Friday, except it’s Germany. So there are beer-loving and schnitzel-eating orcs running about. And inside this mall was the jewelry shop from where the rings had been bought And I had asked them to hold on to the rings, you know, until I knew what to do with them Yaya, they said, take all the time you need. They obviously didn’t know what to do with me. What they called their first case of the fiance-less fiance. Not that they know that I take my sweet time to make a decision. 

I got to the store, and the shop assistant seated me in the area overlooking the luxury watches. And that’s where I waited for about 25 minutes. And I sat there, looking at the adverts on the wall with slogans about love, how diamonds are forever, and how it’s time to celebrate. Much like some people who had tried to console me, it was misguided and at odds with how I was feeling. The slogan that probably resonated most was, don’t crack under pressure. Especially as I sat there thinking how, in a matter of weeks, those rings had gone from the bit of bling-bling I dreamed about since I was a kid, to a beautiful promise my fiance and I had made to each other. And finally, something symbolizing everything that hadn’t happened, the wedding anniversary that just wasn’t. And that’s when I became certain I did not, could not, see those rings. Oh no, no. 

Up until that moment, I had thought I wanted to keep everything associated with him. Literally, I was worried I was becoming a hoarder. I think about the closet full of clothes that had outlived him. There was the unworn blazer that he was saving for a good occasion that just never came. And that one shirt that was so ugly. I used to call it the, ​“honey, please don’t fuck me tonight” shirt. Or as one of the participants would say, ​“no sexy time shirt.” Yeah, I’m sure you have one of those shirts. It was hideous. I dreamed about throwing it away. But you know when someone dies, a funny thing happens. You want to keep everything because they become semi-reverential. It’s like memories live in them. So the shop assistant came back with the manager to see if I had made a decision. 

And that’s when I broke down. I started crying and my tears were flowing to the beat of the watches that tick-tock all around me. I was a mess. I was such a mess. I was pretty sure I could give Gollum a run for his money. I had just decided I wasn’t going to keep those rings, so the time had come to pick something else. But the fact that I could do this made me feel unfaithful to my grief and shallow to my core when really all I was trying to do was survive terrible loss and not be another thing he had left behind. 

Part of the ring experience was a spiritual journey and it was also a critical part of my grieving process. I learned that while dreams and sentimental objects are nice to have It’s good to know when to let them go. And while I kept the ugly shirts, in the last 19 months, I’ve had to let go of him, our apartment, and my old life. And he’s part of that old life. It’s a life I wanted, no doubt. But I learned that I had to let go of that life to learn how to live in the present. 

I therefore went back in time to my memories, where he now resides. and I gave him the biggest bear hug goodbye, apologizing that my time had come to cut this lost tie to us as a couple. 

And now, for the big reveal. In the end, I got something that symbolizes the part that I am on. And that’s why I got a watch. It’s a milestone of time, symbolizing the end of our time. but celebrating a new time for me. The time of being a fiance-less fiance had ticked by. Thank you.