And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.
I didn’t expect Valentine’s Day to be difficult. I even told a few people that I was relieved that the mad line-up of holidays and events that we had to endure from October to January – October: our 25th anniversary and Livvy’s birthday, November: Thanksgiving, December: Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Michael’s birthday two days after Christmas, January: New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Day, the first anniversary of Michael’s accident – was all over, and we have a kind of quiet period between now and the anniversary of his death in June. We never did much for Valentine’s Day, I said, shrugging. And we didn’t. We usually exchanged cards. He brought me a small box of conversation hearts and a small box of chocolates. I bought him some sort of sweet treat too.
But…there’s the pendant.
On our first Valentine’s Day as a couple, before we were married, Michael gave me a small heart-shaped pendant made out of diamonds and rubies. Rubies are my birthstone. I loved it, I still do, but rarely wear it, as it’s just too fancy for everyday wear. But I wore it faithfully every Valentine’s Day. Each time I wore it, I remembered him giving it to me, and I’d smile.
Until last year. Last year for Valentine’s Day, Michael was still in the hospital. He’d been in the ICU twice, and on that day, was in his second “step-down room”. He still wasn’t always there cognitively, he insisted I was his sister, he’d just had a feeding tube put into his stomach and he’d suffered a fall. My schedule every day was to finish with morning clients, grab my lunch, run to the hospital, and spend the afternoon there, until it was time for me to head back for evening clients and classes. I didn’t realize until recently how much I was on auto-pilot.
On Valentine’s Day, as I walked by the hospital’s gift shop, I stopped. I wasn’t planning on getting Michael anything – he couldn’t eat and he thought I was his sister. But the balloons were so cheerful, bobbing near the ceiling, and so I went in and bought two. When I arrived in Michael’s room, he was sleeping. I carefully tied the balloons to the foot of his bed so he could see them upon waking.
I didn’t wear the pendant. I don’t think I was even wearing something red. Until I saw those balloons, it was just another day on auto-pilot.
This year, of course, Michael is gone. As my thoughts turned to Valentine’s Day, I thought of the pendant. And that’s when I realized that I have no idea where my jewelry box is.
I’m a jewelry nut. I actually have a tall antique cabinet called a chimney cabinet that houses my jewelry, most of which is artist-made. But I had a small jewelry box, only about ten inches by ten inches by ten inches, with several drawers, that held jewelry I treasured, but didn’t wear often. The wedding ring from my first marriage. My engagement ring from Michael. Pocket watches from my maternal grandfather and grandmother. The teeny tiny diamond cross that my father gave my mother on their 25th wedding anniversary, that my mother gave to me to wear on my first wedding day.
And…the pendant.
When I realized the jewelry box was missing, I stood and stared at the spot where it used to be. In a corner of my bedroom, there is a corner desk, triangle-shaped, that fits snugly there. Before it was there, there was an old time floor-standing radio. On top of the radio was my jewelry box. When Michael was home from the hospital and rehab, I rearranged, bringing the corner desk back to that corner, and moving the radio to our off-site storeroom. It was always too big for that corner, and I was constantly banging my toe on it. But…I don’t remember what I did with my jewelry box. It didn’t fit well on top of the corner desk, and so I moved it. Somewhere. It’s a big blank.
Suddenly, Valentine’s Day was important. And suddenly, it was beyond important that I have my pendant to wear.
I’ve turned the house upside down, looking in every closet, on every shelf. I went out to the storeroom, found the old radio, but no jewelry box. No pendant, no pendant, no pendant.
In a way, I guess I feel like I’ve let Michael down again. I haven’t been able to find a way to make sure that the driver who killed Michael received consequences. And now, I’ve lost something precious that he gave to me before we were even married. He’d never given a gift like that to any other woman before. But he gave it to me. He said he was giving me his heart.
To say I’ve been sad is an understatement.
Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. I will not be wearing the pendant.
But then this last Tuesday, I received a phone call. THE phone call, that I’d been waiting for. Remember the blog that I wrote on 12/21/24? You can still see it – it’s still up. I decided to have our wedding rings made into one ring. Not just attached to each other, but the rings were to be melted down and the metal re-used to form a new ring. The diamonds from both rings were removed, then styled into the new ring. A whole new and unique one-of-a-kind design was created, and I decided I would wear this ring on my right hand, not my left, because this is a new chapter for me, and really, for Michael too.
I was wiping tears from my face over the missing pendant when I got the phone call. The ring was ready.
I dropped everything and ran.
The lovely woman, Becca, who designed my ring was not there when I arrived, and neither was Craig Husar, her father, who came and sat by me while we talked about the ring and Becca sketched out her ideas. But another lovely woman who knew the whole story brought my ring out to me. She took it from its box and she didn’t hand it to me. Instead, she slipped it right onto my finger.
Where it fit like it belonged there all along.
And it’s breathtaking.
The ring is made of curves, all entwined together, as Michael and I were, and are, entwined. The original rings were silver and gold, and this ring is as well. Michael liked gold, and I love silver, and so I wear the silver side toward me.
In my mind, when we wore our wedding rings, they were reminders to each of us individually that we belonged together. When Michael died, I wore his ring with mine for several months. But then I wanted to put them together, just one ring, to show that we are still entwined, even as my wedding ring finger is bare and I’m still in this world, all by myself.
I have the ring, and because I have the ring, I also have both wedding rings and all the history those rings went through on our fingers. And I have it in time for Valentine’s Day.
I will find the pendant. Maybe when I find my heart again. But for now…I have the ring. And we are entwined.
Happy Valentine’s Day, Michael. Tomorrow, I will go out and buy a small box of conversation hearts and a small box of chocolates.
And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.




