Grandma and Her Pinky Ring

Grandma lived around the block from us my entire childhood. What that means when you grow up in a suburb is that she was about 75 yards away from me at all times and easy to get to. She spent countless hours at her kitchen table, and I spent countless hours with her at the kitchen table. Periodically my Grandfather would hobble in to join us, despite his crippling arthritis and Paget's disease.

And she smoked Camels while he smoked ciagrs until 1972. Can you imagine? Now, she didn't smoke nonstop but smoked nonetheless. And it was when she smoked that her pinky ring always caught my eye--probably from around the time I was 10 years old or so. Finally, I asked her about the ring and, like all little girls, asked if I could try it on. And this Grandma almost always found a way to yes to this and just about everything else.

"Where'd you get it?" Oh, she said it was a long story. My response was, "So? Can't I know it?"
"Well, Susie, this was my mother's ring. She was only 29 years old when her husband, who was my father, died and left her a widow with me, who was 2 years old, and my sister who was 9 and my brother who was 11. You never met my borther because he died when your Mom was about 18 or so. You knwo Aunt Florrie. So from the time I was 2 to when I was about 15 or so, she worked, and raised us and did everything she could for us. Then one day she met and dated a man from England who wanted to marry her and she liked him very much. He gave her this ring as their promise and proposed they live in England."

"Was Nana married again before she got old?" I was sure I wouldn't have missed that story, although I was a little girl I was when Nana died.

"No, and that's why I wear this ring, Susie. I was 15 and I didn't want to move. I had my friends, I liked a boy very much and I was spoiled by my mother and sister and brother. I told her I refused to move and too bad! Because of me, Nana never married him, and obviously we didn't move to England, where Nana grew up. So their romance ended, and he didn't want the ring back. Nana devoted her life to me and since she passed away, I wear this ring everyday to remind me of her and what she did for me. "

When my grandmother died 24 years ago, I asked my mother if she knew the story of that ring. She didn't, she said, so of course I told her and asked if I could have that ring. My mother granted my wish and now I look at it as a Mom and think of the sacrifices/choices we make as Moms--right or wrong--for what we hope will be the best for our children.