anniversary

With This Ring. . .

~ Sharon Abbott ~ 6 Comments

When Paul proposed in January of 1969, he did it without an engagement ring.  That is another story and one that is told in the story called The Proposal. But this is a different story.  

The day after we graduated from high school, Paul got in a car and drove to Denver where his Dad had moved earlier in the year for a job. He got a job in the same bakery where his dad worked and eventually would land a second job at the Leaning Tower of Pizza (yup, that was really the name of it). The rest of the family stayed in Pueblo to finish out the school year and over the summer, they would all relocate. I stayed in Pueblo for my job. We wrote letters back and forth every day and I penned mine on stationary that I had purchased with some of my graduation money – a box filled with bright neon orange and green and yellow sheets and matching envelopes. He used a yellow legal pad with white envelopes (once a debater, always a debater). They were love letters of sorts and also a daily journal of what we had done that day and whatever it is that eighteen year olds write to one another when they are falling in love. I wish I still had them.

I say all that to say that even after working two jobs all summer and putting in lots and lots of hours because he had nothing else to do really, at the end of the summer he had no money to show for his efforts. Not because he spent it all on himself, but because his family was struggling financially trying to get moved and established in Denver, and Paul signed over his paycheck to them every week. That, with what his dad was bringing home, kept the wolf from the door until they could get on their feet.  

He returned to Pueblo at the end of the summer to start school at the local college where we both had full scholarships and got a job at Sears selling paint to pay for gas to get back and forth to class from the home of a family friend who boarded him for free.  

In December he returned to Denver to spend the holidays with his family and when he came back for the second semester we got engaged.and set the wedding for September.  And yes, I know., We were too young, we were too poor, we were too stupid, we were too. . . . But that’s the way the story goes.

I think it must have been sometime in the spring, maybe over Spring Break, we went to Denver to visit his family. His mother wanted to go to the mall, and usually when Judy made a plan, it was going to happen. So we were walking through the mall, window shopping and visiting and at some point we ended up at the Sear’s jewelry counter. His mother stopped to look – she loved jewelry! I think I wandered off in a different direction to look at sweaters or some such thing and she called me back. She was pointing at engagement rings. “So when you get a ring, what kind do you like?” I hadn’t really thought about it. “Well. . . I like white gold,” I offered. “But what STYLE do you like?” I wasn’t sure what to say. “Do you like that one?” Not really, though I could’t really give her a reason. “What about that one?” Uuummmm. . . it’s okay. “That one?” No. “How about that one?” Yeah. I do sort of like that. She got the sales clerk’s attention, “Can we try that one on?” I put it on my finger. “What do you think?” she wanted to know. I thought it was pretty. “Okay, we’ll take it,” she told the clerk. And just like that, I had picked out my engagement ring. Had I known we were actually going to buy a ring that day, I’m not sure it’s what I would have chosen. But I did like it well enough. Looking back, I know we went to the mall that day to get a ring, and when Judy makes a plan . . .

Over the years, I wore it and the plain matching wedding band without really giving it much thought or notice. I wore it when I kneaded bread and when I bathed babies. When I washed dishes and when I folded laundry. When I slammed the door after a fight about who knows what and when I caressed his face and said, “I’m sorry “. When I taught my little ones to hold a pencil and when I walked down the street holding hands with the one who had put it on my finger at the altar. I wore it when I wiped away tears from little faces and from my own and when I served up ice cream floats to college students as we sat on the front porch on hot summer nights.

And then one day, about 20 years later, I looked down at my hand and the diamond was missing from the ring. It was not a big diamond, but now there seemed to be a huge gaping hole where the stone should have been. I had no idea how long it had been missing or when or where I lost it. I only knew it was gone, and I was devastated. All of a sudden the ring that had not mattered, mattered so much. Money was tight and while Paul wanted to get the stone replaced, I insisted that we should just get plain bands and wait on a diamond . . . so that’s what we did. For twenty years, we wore plain gold bands and I told myself it was way more practical anyway. Paul continued to wear his original band on his right hand and sometimes people would ask him why he wore two wedding rings. “This one is from my first marriage,” he would say. I wore my mother’s engagement ring and wedding band on my right hand which is another story for another day called The Fellowship of the Ring but also worth reading.

And then on September 5, 2009, on our 40th wedding anniversary, Paul had a gift for me. He put a black velvet ring box in my hand. I thought maybe he had bought me an anniversary band. When I opened it, there was my ring. With a new stone in it. And yes, I cried.  He was explaining he had wanted to replace it with a bigger diamond but it would need a new setting to do that and that would have been more expensive. And that he was sorry the diamond was so small, and he wished it were bigger and maybe he should have just gotten a new ring altogether. How could I explain to him everything this ring meant to me after 40 years?  

That this ring told the story of not just his love and his care for me, but for his parents and how he had spent all his summer wages to help them. That I had learned that a man who would care for his parents like that would care for his wife and sacrifice for her which he had done over and over and over again. It told the story of my mother-in-law and her generosity and her love and care for me. It told the story of our marriage: that it had never been built on money or expensive things but on love and commitment and our promise to one another. That ring, which had cost $160 in 1969, held so many stories. It was irreplacable. No, I did not want a different ring.

And now, as our 50th anniversary approaches (but how can we have been married 50 years??!!), Paul made a plan – he is his mother’s son. He wanted to put a bigger, better stone in the ring.  “Because,” he said, “fifty years is a really big deal.”.  I agreed. Fifty years is a big deal.  But only if they could put it in the original setting and make it work. So we took it to a jeweler who helped us to choose the right stone and will repair the crack in the band and give it back better than new. And now this will become part of the story as well.  

Side bar:  A couple of years ago, I had a minor surgery which required general anesthesia. Following the doctor’s directions, I removed all my jewelry and left it on my dresser before I went to the hospital. I got all the typical warnings and instructions before I returned home:  don’t drive, don’t operate heavy machinery, don’t sign any documents or make any major decisions, don’t use the stove. etc.  When we returned home, Paul deposited me on the couch, and went across the street to get me a salad. He was gone maybe 15 minutes. During that time I saw my jewelry on the dresser and decided it needed to be cleaned ( I have NEVER cleaned my jewelry before in my life) so I took it all to the bathroom, plugged and filled the sink, slathered it with jewelry cleaner, washed it all off, dried it off, drained the sink, and put it back on – earrings, necklace, bracelet, etc.  A few minutes later I noticed I was not wearing my wedding ring. I retraced by steps, looked all over the counter, and decided it must have been in the sink when I drained the water. About this time, Paul returned home.  “We have a small problem,” and I explained the situation.  “But all we need to do is take apart the pipe under the sink, and there it will be. Easy peasie.” The problem was, it wasn’t in the pipe. I could feel the panic rising. Paul said maybe he could disconnect the pipe in the basement and find it that way.  Nope.  Full blown panic was setting in. I was in tears and could not be comforted. Paul sat on the bathroom bench next to me: “It’s okay.  It’s just a ring. We can get another ring. It’s just a symbol. We are the real thing. And we still have each other. That’s the important thing.”  By now I was wailing.  “NO!!  THE IMPORTANT THING IS THAT WE FIND THAT RING!  I HAVE  HAD THAT RING FOR ALMOST 50 YEARS AND IT’S IRREPLACEABLE!”  Okay, so maybe the hysteria was coming from the drugs still in my system. . .  but still. . . 

I could hear Paul in the living room calling plumbers, It was after 5:00 so it was hard to get anybody to answer. but he was trying. To calm myself, I stood up and began aimlessly moving things around the bathroom counter. And there, carefully tucked under the soap dish where I had obviously put it for safe keeping but had no memory of doing so, was my ring.  That which had been lost was found and now I cried uncontrollable happy tears (didn’t Jesus tell a story something like this?). 

Like a marriage of 50 years

Two lessons to learn from this chapter of the story: (1) Always follow your doctor’s instructions after anesthesia, though in my defense nobody said anything about not cleaning your jewelry and (2) The worth of an object is not always measured by monetary value but by the stories we attach to it. Some things are irreplaceable.

A Whole New World 

~ Sharon Abbott ~ 2 Comments
Centennial High School, Pueblo, Colo
Centennial High School, Pueblo, Colo

It was September of 1965. I was a high school sophomore, though in those days we had junior high (7th-9th grades) instead of middle school (6th-8th) and so this was to be my first year of high school. A whole new world. We were only into the second or third week of school when a kid I knew from junior high and who was in my fourth period English class approached my desk just before the bell rang. He got down on one knee in the typical proposal pose, “Sharon Fletcher, will you be my debate partner?” Are you kidding me?! Stand up! NO!! You’re embarrassing me! I do not want to be your debate partner. Or anybody’s debate partner. Go away! And Mr. Star said, “Paul, what are you doing?! Take your seat.” But after class he was waiting for me.

He explained that the guidance counselor, Mrs. Murray,  had called him into her office a couple of days before to see what extra-curricular activities he was planning on joining. He had not been quick with an answer. “You would be good in the debate club,” she announced. Take this note to Mr. Hamn and tell him I have signed you up for the debate team.” And so he did. I guess for no other reason than because he was just a dumb sophomore and didn’t know any better. Mr. Hamn told him he would need to find a partner because everyone else was already paired up and he was the odd man out. So he went to the smartest kid in the class, Tom Holloran (who would end up valedictorian), but Tom was too busy and wasn’t interested. His best friend, also named Tom, was heavy into sports and he definitely wouldn’t have the time. I think he tried a couple of others without success which brought him to my desk in fourth period and seeing as how he was desperate, I was exactly what he was looking for (my words not his but one of my favorite lines from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.)  NO!!!

I thought no more about it until my mother got home from work and asked me how school had gone and I replayed the scene for her, complete with the bended knee. “Weird, right?” I laughed. But clearly she had not taken in the whole cheesiness factor or absurdity of the situation or my insistence that I was NOT interested. She said simply, “Yes. You should do it. You need an activity. This is a good fit. Tell him you’ll do it.”  Two things you should know. My mother was a single, working mom (not very common in those days) and I’m sure she saw this as an opportunity to keep me occupied, engaged in a worthwhile activity, and hence out of trouble since how much trouble could you get into in debate club? She had no idea what went on in the back of the bus on those debate trips. And second, if my mother had made up her mind – there WAS no debate. I was stuck.

In many ways, that year changed my life. I learned that I was smarter than I knew and that I was good at something. As it turned out, that something didn’t happen to be debate. I really hated that – though maybe it was just the topic: Resolved: That the federal government should adopt a program of compulsory arbitration in labor management disputes in basic industries (how do I still remember that?) I liked the friends I made that year and how interesting and funny and curious they were about ideas and about life: John (who pasted a bumper sticker on his bare stomach and then discovered it wouldn’t peel off and so every time he moved there was the sound of crinkling paper) and Eddie, Linda and Ann F. and Connie and Mary and Ann W. and all the ones who came after.

Debate Club. 1968
Debate Club. 1968

I liked staying in the hotels on overnight trips and getting locked out of our room and staying up way too late even though we had to compete the next day. I liked seeing my name on the list of people who had made it to the next round and that every once in a while I got to take home a trophy. I liked Mr. Hamn who became my mentor in speech as well as in life and wasn’t afraid to tell me about the guy I was dating – “he’s a loser”. And I liked that when Mr. Hamn said that nobody could take up a seat on the bus unless they competed in a second event, I discovered what I really loved and could win at:  Drama. But maybe the thing I liked best  about that year (though I wouldn’t know it until later) was all the hours I spent at the library doing research with my debate partner and then drinking cherry limeades at Sambo’s across the street and solving the problems of the world. He was a person of faith and helped me to find my own way to faith and since we were both dating other people that year, the boy-girl thing didn’t get in our way. Which is good because it’s hard to solve the problems of the world or worry too much about a solution to labor-management disputes if you’re distracted by love. However, love would follow within a couple of years and deepen over a lifetime.

We only debated together that one year. After that I spent more time with drama and he found another debate partner. I asked him later why he asked me after his first choices turned him down. “Well, I remember that in 9th grade you gave a speech at the Honor Society Banquet and you weren’t that bad.” For somebody who was good with words, he still had a ways to go.

So today as we celebrate our 46th  wedding anniversary, maybe we will raise a glass to Mrs. Murray who was just doing her job, to Mr. Star’s  fourth period English Class where it all began, to my mother against whom I never won a debate, and to Mr. Hamn and the Centennial Debate Team for some invaluable lessons and great times. Cheers!

And Happy Anniversary to the one I love.

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The Proposal

~ Sharon Abbott ~ 3 Comments

We had known each since the 4th grade. We
were high school debate partners who became friends and then began to date. We fought and broke up and got back together like most high school romances and then we graduated high school and he moved away for the summer and we became pen pals – writing daily letters back and forth between our cities, each envelope containing a window into the other’s soul.

He returned home and we started college and fought like crazy.  But by Christmas, when he left town again, there was no question but that we were in love.

The problem, as I saw it, was that he had made it pretty clear from the beginning that he had no plans to marry me or anybody else really. Ever. He wanted to serve God. I say all of this to explain why then, when he returned from Christmas break and wanted to take me to a really nice restaurant (one where they set the desert on fire right at your table!) and a movie (Bullet starring Steve McQueen – I know, right?) I was not really expecting what came next which is how the whole plan went terribly awry.

This of course, was long before wedding proposals were well choreographed, well scripted, and well planned productions complete with a supporting cast, a film crew, gynormous budgets and an engagement ring in its little black velvet box awaiting the reveal. They were really more like. . . well, like improv.  In hindsight, it might have gone better for him had he made his move during dinner with a little set up:  I’ve been thinking about this and praying about this and over the past six months I realize that serving God and marrying you are not actually mutually exclusive – or something like that only more romantic. At any rate, either because that was not the plan, or he deviated from the plan, that conversation never took place – not until much later. So after a lovely dinner and a car chase through the streets of San Francisco with McQueen, he took me home where we sat outside in the car, saying our goodbyes. And that’s when he said, “Will you marry me?”

There is a reason why the next words out of my mouth have become part of the family lore and legend. 

What I said was, “Go home and sleep on it.  And if you never mention this again, neither will I.”  Granted, if I had had a better script writer I might have said something like, “Are you sure you’re not just caught up in the moment and the romance of the evening – the flaming dessert and Steve McQueen?  This seems contradictory to all our previous conversations about marriage. What changed?”  But it was the best line I could improvise in the moment. And so, while what I was thinking was – you are in love with this moment and this evening and the romance of it all, and tomorrow you will wish you could take it all back and I do not want to have that conversation with you –  what I actually I said was, “Go home and sleep on it. And if you don’t mention it again, neither will I”  and I got out of the car and went in the house.

He called the next day to say he had to run some errands and did I want to come along. Sure. We might as well get this over with sooner than later. I had just “set” my hair.  You may or may not remember using empty orange juice cans for hair rollers. You get the picture. If we were going to have this conversation, it was going to be with the real me.  In the cold light of day. We were driving down 18th Street.

“Well,” he said.
“Well what?”
“Will you marry me?”
 “Okay.”
 “Okay WHAT?!”
  “OKAY!  I’LL MARRY YOU!!”  I type this all in caps because, when he tells the story, he yells this part – in sort of an angry voice. I don’t remember it that way. But who knows?

So that was the proposal. By today’s standards, not a very impressive production. But a great story. And it is our story. One of many.

We have been married 45 years today. Those years have seen their share of incredible joy and gut wrenching heartache. But he is now, as he was then, the love of my life. And had I known him then as well as I know him now, I would have known that that proposal came with great planning and care and intention. That he would never have been swept up in the moment (even if it did include Steve McQueen) and that he always, always acts out of conviction. I would have known that his love for God is what fuels his love for me and that together we would make a pretty good team.  

Had I known then what I know now, I would have said without a moment’s hesitation, “YES!  I’ll marry you!”  But then again, where would the story be in that?

 

Groundhog Day and Other Important Holidays

~ Sharon Abbott ~ Leave a comment

It’s an odd holiday, really. No one takes the day off work; there are no special foods associated with the day; though a movie was made in its honor and the news media usually covers it to some degree, it doesn’t really rank up there as one of our favorite celebrations. No gifts are exchanged to mark the occasion and when all is said and done, it’s just sort of lame. Except in my family.

February 2 was always a big day in the Fletcher family. My parents were married on Groundhog Day. At the time, no one really made a big to-do of the wedding. They simply got in a car and drove to the next county to a justice of the peace and said their vows. My mother’s sister Violet went with them as did my dad’s brother Buck. Buck and Vie later married each other, but that’s another story and one which I do not know much about. I don’t think my parents “eloped” . . .  they just didn’t make much of a fuss about the wedding part of it. As Anna from Downton Abbey says, “I’d rather have the right man than the right wedding.” I can so imagine those words coming from my mother’s mouth. So on February 2, 1924, they were married. 

wedding announcement
I wonder about the story behind this wedding announcement sent by mother’s parents to their friends and family. Were they disappointed not to have been included in their daughter’s wedding or had they agreed with her “no-nonsense” approach to such things?
Ray & Hazel Fletcher – married Feb. 2, 1924. We know this picture was taken in 1924 because that year was written on the back. We assume it was taken on their wedding day because Dad is wearing a suit and no one remembers ever seeing him in a suit – ever.

However, an anniversary, though important to the couple, does not usually become a “family holiday”. But wait. . . there’s more. The winter of 1925 was a very stormy one with several big blizzards. The young couple were 30 miles from the nearest doctor and had only a wagon and horses for transportation. When a break in the weather came, Dad loaded his pregnant wife in the wagon and took her to her parents who lived near the doctor, and she stayed with them until Don was born. And  on their first wedding anniversary, Feb. 2, 1925,  my mother gave birth to their first child: it was Groundhog Day.

 The next 25 years would bring the Great Depression, a World War, and many other hardships to this farm family. They would lose their farm and livelihood and struggle to feed their five children and, along with their neighbors and friends, fight to keep body and soul together. They would send that first born son off to fight in Germany and agonize through the days and months when he was listed as Missing in Action and then finally begin to put their lives back together again when he was liberated from a German POW camp and eventually sent home. Life began to return to “normal” and they dared to once again believe in a future. Don married a local girl, their oldest daughter Lila Rae completed nursing school in the big city, married a “foreigner” as my father labeled him (a Democrat and a Catholic), but all in all, things were looking up!  They were even expecting their first grandchild.

Jolene was born on a bleak winter’s day and became the first of the next generation of Fletchers. She was born on her grandparent’s Silver Wedding Anniversary and her father’s 24th birthday. The date was February 2, 1949:  Groundhog Day.

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Hazel Fletcher with her son Don, granddaughter Jolene and father, Charles Barnes

And that’s how Groundhog day became a holiday in the Fletcher family: with special foods, special traditions, and special significance. And if anyone outside the family ever wondered why the Fletchers made so much of a non-holiday that centered around a rodent named Punxsutawney  Phil, they never said. 

Epilogue:
After I wrote this piece I learned that this Groundhog celebration has continued in the Fletcher family into succeeding generations.  Jolene’s granddaughter was also born on Feb.  2 … in 2007.  Long live Punxsutawney Phil.

                                            

Fellowship of the Ring

~ Sharon Abbott ~ Leave a comment

“But what happened to the diamond? “ I asked my mother. I was ten years old and in her treasure box I  had discovered a ring with a missing stone, and she was explaining that it was the ring my dad had given to her as an engagement ring. She had lost the stone from the setting many years before . . . before I was even born . . . but had kept the setting because…. well, because my dad had given it to her.

When he had asked about a ring she had scoffed, “I don’t want a ring – I want a new cookstove.”  And so my father had purchased a cookstove for his new bride and whether he couldn’t afford a diamond or he preferred rubies, I never knew. But, she explained, it was a ruby that she had worn in the beautiful gold setting that he had also given to her as an engagement ring. Over the years of rolling biscuit dough and washing clothes in a wash tub, she had lost the ruby but held on to the setting. And after my father died it was one of the few things she had that he had given to her and it was that setting that I loved to look as a little girl and hoped that I, too, might someday have such a beautiful ring.

Many, many years later my sister Minnie asked her if she could have the setting. I was grown by then and my mother explained that while she had not really wanted to part with the ring, she had given it to her because she did not foresee a time when she would have the money to replace the stone and someone might as well enjoy it. Minnie took the ring, replaced the stone and returned it to my mother who treasured it as though it were a 12 carat diamond.

 Before she died Mom asked each of us if there was something special of hers that we wanted. I responded immediately, “Your ruby ring,” Her response was just as  quick: “ No you can’t have that. It belongs to Minnie.”  Fair  enough. I don’t remember what I chose in its place.

Many, many years pass and my older sister Lila and I travel to Texas to see Minnie. We all know the purpose of this visit is to say goodbye to her. She is dying of cancer. We are there fewer than 10 minutes when Minnie takes us to her room:  “Come in here, girls, I have something to give you. “ She opened a jewelry box where she kept my mother’s solid gold wedding band and her ruby engagement ring. “Lila, you take the wedding band. And Sherry, you should have the ruby.”

 I have worn that ruby ring every day since, and every day it reminds me of my mother, my father who gave it to her, and their love for one another.

Last week I sat in an upstairs room going through a chest of Lila’s things with her daughters.

“We think you should have Grandma’s wedding, band, Sherry”. And so I took this very generous gift and placed it on my finger next to the ruby our father had chosen for her ….. and we all agreed that that was the how the set should be worn.

And now on my right hand I wear the ruby engagement ring purchased by my father for his young bride of 20 and the band with which he sealed his vow to her till death parted them. And I think of my parents, but also of my two amazing sisters who held these treasures in protective custody for awhile and of my generous nieces who left them with me. And I am reminded that a love story does not end with the passing of the loved one – it is just passed on.