A Pinky Promise

I burst into tears when the jeweller handed me my late mother’s ring. When I brought it into the shop, it was dull and broken from years of wear. From years of daily abrasion. Stones loosen; settings weaken. Looking at it now, the star-split band is soldered, mended like a scar. Connection restored. Healed. Once three, now two, stones stay intact. Two grey-blue stone eyes like my mother's. Dad bought this friendship ring for Mum 45 years ago. A promise ring. The promise of things to come.

When we were kids, my sister would admire Mum’s rings and wanted to wear them all the time. My childhood memories are connected to Mum wearing this particular ring. Calisthenics classes and concerts. Netball training. Birthday parties. Sleepovers. Cooking with spices. Sewing clothes and curtains. Shopping with our eyes first. Conversations at the kitchen table. Laughing at jumbled words and mixing up languages. Crying over bloodied knees and hurt feelings. I didn’t like wearing rings then, when I was a child. But now, Mum’s restored shiny ring sits on my little finger. I wear her small ring, alive in its narrative of vitality, without denying its memorial promise of remembrance.

I cry an awful lot nowadays. The mundane guts me. Today, I was searching for a recipe in the family group chat with my dad, sister, and brother, all “last seen recently”. Then Mum, still in the chat, “last seen a long time ago”. It's been 3 months of grieving, a probationary period in working terms. Grief makes sorting Mum’s belongings feel like excavating a life too raw to disturb yet. It triggers memories that flood hot tears and halt any progress. A closet of dresses and cardigans scented with her perfume. Wrapping paper and photo albums. A recording of her voice from a happier time. Each drawer is an ambush. Though grief’s probation has ended, demanding triage, I still don’t feel ready to begin.

Not ready to choose which objects live on, as if selecting which parts of Mum are allowed to remain. I am not ready to be the executioner of what must be let go, of what will disappear. Not ready to meet all the versions of Mum and me, all at once, that lived in the history of ordinary things, and feel how much has been lost with them. I am not even ready to say goodbye to a pair of her everyday walking shoes that we chose together, twinning, size 5, and fit no one. It pains me to admit that all of this unreadiness aches as much as holding her hand and watching her die. I know I have to be ready to let go with grace and create space for what comes next. Not today, but one day soon, I will be a co-curator of my mother’s possessions.

For now, I twist Mum’s ring full of promises on my finger and talk to her the way we always did. I find her hands again, the warmth still folded inside. The gold hums. Grey-blue gems watch, unblinking. A circle that defies time's scrape. Pieces of metal and stone that held my mother's life in a circular band that was very much lived in. That was very much loved. That will very much be remembered. 

A happy moment with Mum on a beach in Viareggio, having an evening picnic with our fun-sized red wine drinking cartons.