My pappap wore this big thick diamond ring on his pinky. It was masculine, just oozing with rich testosterone. We would go to church together every Saturday night (yes, when my pappap was in my life, I really did believe in God), and sometimes he would rap his pinky against the pew and whisper, “One day, this ring will be yours.”
And it was. For a day.
He Willed it to me, and I was “allowed” to wear it on a chain for my senior pictures. It was really the only piece of him I had after he died.
And it was taken from me.
My family was afraid I’d run off and pawn it, which was apparently, to them, a typical Erin thing to do. I haven’t seen that damn ring since I was seventeen.
According to my Aunt Sharon, my grandma put it somewhere “safe” for when I was “older” and now she “can’t find it.”
That bullshit smells worse than the hair grease on the cast of Jersey Shore on a humid day.
But what I do have is a charm bracelet. My grandfather used to take me to Europe when I was a kid, and on one of the trips, he thought it would be a good idea to put together a charm bracelet for me. So every city we visited, we would stop in several jewelry shops, looking for the perfect representation of that city in charm-form.
When I went to Australia by myself in 2001, I carried on the tradition and found a gold koala. It was bittersweet, coming home and taking it to a jeweler without my pappap. But it’s the one thing I own that I look at feel like I do still have a piece of him with me.
I almost never wear it for two reasons:
- It’s easily the most expensive thing I own and it makes me feel like I’m flashing a strobe light for all the muggers in the city.
- It’s REALLY FUCKING JANGLY.
