What you see in this picture is a pair of earrings. There is one other pair that's similar to them, but these pieces of jewelry are very unique, and each of my daughters has a pair.You may wonder what's so special about them. On the surface, they look like simple gold earrings. Well, I'll tell you, there's a bit more to these earrings than meets the eye. These earrings, which I gave to my girls this morning, are made from the wedding ring I wore when I was married to their mother.
When I divorced their mom, I didn't throw away the ring. My decision to keep the band wasn't out of some deep-seated belief that we'd one day end up back together, nor was it strictly financial. I figured that one day, I'd hand it down to the kids. As time passed, I kept wondering how I was going to pass one ring to two children. This, coupled with the fact that my kids were young when their mom and I divorced, is why the ring stayed in my possession.
More time passed... the kids got a bit older... and I forgot about the ring. Every now and again, I'd run across it, which would get me thinking about how I was going to pass it to the kids. Eventually, I came up with two possibilities. One was to get the ring cut in half, flatten out each half, and make pendants out of them. The earrings were the second idea, an idea which didn't come until much later. Recently, the inspiration, opportunity and inclination to get this done all came together.
I spoke to an acquaintance of mine who is a master jeweler. He said that due to the pattern, the gold would probably crack if we tried to flatten it out, so we went with the earrings for practical reasons. There was an inscription on the back of the ring, and I asked the jeweler to preserve the inscription if possible. The inscription was preserved, and is on the back of two out of the four earrings, each daughter having one earring bearing part of the inscription.
I've showed these earrings to a few people, and the reaction has been incredibly consistent. I'd show them, and people would give me the "Those are nice" response, at which time I'd tell the aforementioned story. You could see the light bulbs go on as they understood the full significance, and their "Those are nice" responses, would become "Ooooooh.... that's COOL" responses.
Yeah, I'm kind of proud of this.
1 comment:
As you well should be- that was an innovative and creative way to share with your daughters. I like doing creatives stuff like that as well. My neice will turn 20 tomorrow- and her mom & dad divorced when she was two. She had never spoken to her dad since the split, until last week. About the same time I ran across the wedding invitation and a wedding photo of Nina and Dave together, so for her Birthday- I'm framing them and giving them to her. She has been exchanging texts her dad and she's decided to give him a chance to BE a dad, now.
I can't get over the way you was able to preserve the inscription on the ring!!! Your daughters are lucky to have such a thoughtful dad!
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