I took off my wedding ring …

Today, I took off my wedding ring.  Some people take their ring off several times a day.  When they clean house, or work in the garden.  I’m not one of those people.  I wear my ring all the time, every day, always.  I don’t take it off when I’m angry and I don’t take it off when I bake bread.  I should tho actually.  Cause that dough gets stuck in all the little tiny diamond bits.  There was one time a while back when I had a bad mast cell reaction (hives on top of hives, literally all over my body) when I took my ring off and left it off for a little while because of the swelling that occurred.   I even bought one of those super cheap silicone rings as an alternate to my wedding band.  I got a few for the redneck too, cause he’s always working with his hands and the thought of a easy to clean silicone ring appealed to him too.

But I wasn’t doing any cleaning.  And this wasn’t my cheap silicone stand in.  It was my white gold, vintage 1970s little band that we bought on etsy that was the ring he placed on my hand the day my father married us in a civil service in our backyard.  It means the world to me.  But tonight, as I was reaching for the soap pump in our sink before getting ready for dinner prep, my husband came up to me and asked for my ring back.

It didn’t go quite like that of course.  He said something more along the lines of … “You know, if you wanted to, I’d understand if you didn’t want to wear your ring anymore right now.”  And I knew what he meant in an instant.  My heart dropped but my poker face brushed it off as if I was handing him the butter to put back in the door of the fridge.  “Oh sure, that makes sense,” I said as I grabbed the ring with my right hand and started twisting it back and forth.  “How about this, why don’t you take both of our rings and hang them together on the jewelry tree in our bathroom.  Just hang them together for now.”  And I handed him my ring and he left the kitchen quickly.

It felt odd to wash my hand without my ring.  Scrubbing between my fingers as the CDC details I could feel the bump on my finger where the band was tight against my skin.  I had cut my nails close earlier today too, so that I could clean my finger tips fully against the palm of my hand.  Everything felt odd.  My hands have never been chapped or dry.  But now they were raw and the knuckles are beginning to crack from all the hand washing.

Wash, wash, wash. #GhenCoVy

The Coronavirus COVID-19 is a global game changer.  At a time when politicians are denying climate change, the world stage is facing a pandemic that hasn’t been seen before in our life time.  The death toll for the US is higher than the total number of people who have recovered, which is a hard statistic to see even though we understand it’s early in the game.  Nonetheless we live in a house where many of us are immune compromised.  Some with lung issues, autoimmune disease and other serious health concerns that make the “normal” flu season feel like we are on thin ice.  This week the world data will hit 100k confirmed cases.  I could go on and list all the little tidbits we’ve all learned .. the post hoc from china,  the live world chart that looks like a measles epidemic, the CDC or the plethora of paywalls you hit when you click on an title only to be told that you have reached the limit of your free articles and have to subscribe to continue reading.  Cause that’s the American way, is it not?  Find an illness and see how you can profit from it.  It’s the worse part of supply and demand imaginable.

I could talk about our family plans.  The stock pile of food we’ve been building or the self sanitizing protocol for our family members who are returning home from work.  We are doing all we can, but mostly waiting like sitting ducks.  Housebound and disabled, with no where to run to escape what is already here.  There are the bad jokes of course, how with Amazon Prime you can get your Covid-19 virus this same day if you spend $35 dollars.  Or the senior discounts from Princess Cruise with views of the port from every room.  There are the house jokes of course.  But really there is an under lying somber timbre to the tone of the discord. 

This on the heels of the tragic death on our front lawn last week and just before that the bronchial infection that brought a third of our house mates to the brink of not breathing.  So much life on the line.  The sound of my husband with that whistle in his chest as he could not exhale or take a breath in without a struggle.  The trips to the ER, the urgent care center and the doctor’s office.  I cried for hours in the middle of the night as I was terrified of losing my lover.  It was all over whelming.  We did the quite talks, the hard conversations, the how do I go on without you story lines that no one wants to write in their happily ever afters.  But you talk about those things when you get sick.  When you get sicker than you’ve ever been before.  When you see the fear in your partner’s eyes even when no words are spoken.  Because you know it’s that bad.  You talk about those things.  And we did.

So when my husband asked for my wedding ring tonight, it wasn’t without realizing what he was saying.  It wasn’t that I didn’t understand just how serious this is, especially for him coming on the end of the most serious lung infection that he’s ever had before.  I know he’s worried.  Any sane man would be shook up.  Last year we lost someone so dear to us that we could not put into words.  She’s waiting for him, I’m sure.  But I pray she’ll have to wait a while longer still before he joins her.

Whether we believe we are destined to defend our life, or we wait to find what we’ve LOST,  or we return to the light  whenever you are ready none of us are making it out alive, by design.  But as Trevor Noah Asks, ‘Is This How We Die?’

I can still hear my Dad’s words only four years ago …
“Michael do you promise to unconditionally love and cherish Karma
To share your life with her, to validate and respect her,
to comfort and honor her, with honesty and humor, in sickness and in health, In joy and in sorrow
So long as love and life shall endure.”
And my husband’s words back to me …
“With this ring, I give you my heart.
From this day forward, you shall not walk alone.
May my heart be your shelter, may my arms be your home.”

In truth, it’s the “walking alone” part that’s been so heavy on my heart these days.  This life would kill me, if I didn’t have you. And of course the prospect of dying as part of an over crowded, insufficient beds pandemic in isolation without my husband’s arms around me simply crushes last kiss.

No way around it, these are hard times.  Ultimately we’ve got to live and breathe, laugh and love each other in this small window of NOW.  Because there’s simply no telling what is about to happen next.  But tonight, I’ll fall asleep next to the man that I married, albeit without my wedding ring on my hand slid under his pillow just to feel safe that we both see the dawn.

Hail Mary, full of grace,
the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou amongst women,
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners,
now and until* the hour of our death. Amen.

*Ave Maria is a traditional Catholic prayer.  One that my father wrote for me on a piece of paper when I was recovering after a dismal hospital stay during my early days of diagnosis.  I didn’t have much to hold on to back then, but Dad gave me his faith and a strong handshake as he told me to repeat the prayer any time I was afraid.  In the original verse the last line reads, pray for us sinners now and AT the hour of our death.  But Dad told me, he preferred to say UNTIL.  Because he wanted Mary’s prayers with him always.  Works for me ♥