The Pearl Ring-- An Essay

            I’m not one that’s much for jewelry. I constantly wear a necklace, and I occasionally put something into one of the four holes in my ears. I especially don’t wear rings; it’s hard to find rings for sausage fingers. In fact, I only owned one ring.

            It’s wasn’t a fancy ring, but it was special. A single pearl sat in a gold band, with two small chips of diamonds on either side, like miniature bookends supporting it. There was a small dent in the bottom of the ring from something that I had done wrong. It was a simple ring, but it held special meaning to me.

            Pearl was the birthstone of both me and my mother. She was the one that bought it for me. Being only eight days apart, June was always a special time for us. I adored June, and our connection with each other. It was a special ring to me, but I rarely wore it, instead, it stayed in a heart shaped jewelry box on my mother’s night stand, along with her earrings and wedding band.

            I never worried about my ring because it sat next to her bed. Anything kept with my mother would always have a place. It would always be safe; I’d know where it was. I never thought anything about it because it was safe. That’s the same way I thought about my mother. I never thought about her as anything other than being there, because she was secure. She was my anchor, in so many ways; steady, beneath the surface, always there, always doing its function, and yet, so often going without the credit it is due.

            Especially to a bipolar teenage daughter finding her own way; a daughter that was much more into her own shenanigans and social life, than into what occurs with her family. She was like the pearl ring, I never thought of it not being there, because it never crossed my mind that one day she might not be there.

            But just as she is gone, so is the ring. After she died, I cleaned my mother’s side of her bedroom. It had been ransacked, robbed, violated in ways akin to rape. My mother was a packrat, but a neat one. Everything on her side had its place, and stayed in its place. The side of her bed that I cleaned was not the neat stacks that I had grown up with. Her neat piles were now shifting dunes. Her dresser had been rummaged through, her jewelry box missing beautiful pieces.

            The heart that had sat next to her bed for so many years, was gone in its entirety. I could accept her physical heart being cremated, in a box, but the idea of that porcelain heart no longer being in our apartment was something different. I wouldn’t have expected it to ever leave, it was an inanimate object, it couldn’t die. It held the pearl ring just as my mother’s physical heart held my love.

            But people, siblings, took her heart, because of its physical worth. Because they wanted money. They stole from the one person who would have gladly given her last to them. It’s hard for me to think of that ring, with its diamond chips and dented band, sitting in the window of a pawn shop.

            I wonder if someone bought it for their daughter, mother or lover. It wonder if that person was born in the moth of June as well. They probably don’t think of the memories that someone else had with it. If they think it might have been a mother’s present to her youngest daughter, the only daughter that shared her birthday month.

            I wonder what my brother and his girlfriend spent that $50 or $100 on, and if it was worth it. Do they even think about that money or that rings two years later? Did they even think about the emotions connected to it? I hope that it served them well.

            For them, it was only worth the amount of money they could get for it. For me, it was priceless, something I would give my lung to have on my finger just one more time.

Loss and its Effect On Writing

If there's anything that I've learned from experiencing death, it's that it definitely affects ones creativity. I know that when my mother died, it did something to my writing.

I didn't do any real reading, besides National Geographic and Smithsonian articles, and I really didn't do any creative writing. The one thing I did write extensively, was my diary.

In it, I was able to chronicle everything that was happening with my mom, with my family. It's not something I look back on. I avoid reading that particular diary because those emotions make me feel as if my heart is exploding. I've only written about it once, for a school project on the grieving process. My teacher told me she didn't read it, but she kept it as proof that I wrote it. I guess it forces someone to face the mortality of their own parents.

Anyway, back to it, and my writing.

Because of what I went through, I'm now able to effectively write about loss. It's not something I'm proud of, nor is it something that I've actually used much in my writing.

Not long after my mother died, I tried to write a piece about a girl whose identical twin was dying, in the same manner that my mother did. It was a story, beside the fact that the characters were identical twins, many people could relate to. It never panned out to be more than a re-telling of my mother.

I actually did use it, use my diary to write the death of a character in my teenage diary tale. I need now only to get the entries into order, and make sure it's a cohesive story, beyond the teenage shenanigans.

Another thing I noticed after my mother's death, was how I had written death before that time. I must admit, it was rather convincing. I had all of the "right" things, and it struck the same chords inside me, but it didn't have the same poignancy. It was merely me regurgitating whatever I had read before about loss.

Now... it's a reality that I've experienced oh too personally. It's made me rethink things that are important to my characters. I now make them face their own mortality more, and the mortality of their loved ones. I make them think of a world without that specific object of their affection. I force them to confront what I've confronted. I think it makes for multidimensional characters, which is always a good thing.

I wonder if anyone out there has really put their loss to work for them. I'd love to know...