Horse with No Name on Love: Is the Ring the Thing?

I lost my wedding ring a couple of weeks after we arrived in Arizona. It happened on a long car ride back from the doctor's. It was nearly midnight. The kids were running insane temperatures. I was exhausted and not exactly paying attention to my appendages.

One minute the darn thing was on my finger, the next, it was gone. Just like that.

Had it been been any other piece of jewellery, I might have sulked for a day or so, then moved on.

Had it been any other time in my marriage, the man and I might've shrugged it off, and welcomed the excuse to go ring shopping. C'est la vie and all that.

But this wasn't any other time.

I nearly tore the car apart trying to find that small bit of metal. That ring literally put me through the wringer.

You see, things had been germinating between my husband and I since our first week in Arizona: Dark, fearful, unsaid things that had seeded themselves in the days before the big move. Hurtful, menacing things which sprouted over the many days and nights of trying to cope with grounding our lives in normalcy again.

So when I lost that ring - THAT ring – at the exact time that we hit a rocky patch in our marriage? I couldn’t help but wonder... was this a portent of things to come?


It was time to step into my new life.

I blame the baby. No really, this was totally the little pumpkin's fault. I was in the backseat with the kids, trying to distract the baby while my husband made the long drive home from the doctor's.

She must have thought it was fun to swipe the shiny thing off my finger when I wasn't looking.

Worn out from the late-night drive, my husband's reaction outfroze the winter air. He stopped at a diner. We hunted around in the dark for a bit, then gave up.

“Are you sure you didn't drop it at the doctor's office?” he grunted icily. “You're forgetful lately.”

“Hello? I'm tired. You get up with Pumpkin sometime.”

“You know I would.”

“Sure. You have to work. Let's just go home.”

Work: It had been a sticking point with us for a while now. It was sucking up his life, and draining the rest of us of ours.

“Two weeks to settle in”, he had said before we came here. He was off to work as soon as we landed. I was left behind with the kids and the task unboxing our lives.

“This trip will be good for family life”, he had said. I saw him, sometimes, briefly, at breakfast. And then in the half hour before we went to bed.

The weekends should have provided some solace, but we didn't have the time to stand still. Those days were a blur of trawling furniture stores, grocery stores, stores upon stores to buy things. Things which would make our lives better, easier, more comfortable. But comfort was in short shrift.

The road home stretched on, dark and endless. I felt us drifting.

We got home and went to bed. Like a bad Raymond Carver story. The parents silently brooding at the dinner table. The parents we swore we'd never become.

Sure, we'd had problems before, especially after our first was born in Australia. We were young. Just a year married. A million miles away from home. But we got through it. We talked. And when we got tired, we talked somemore. We came out of that experience wiser and more sure of one another.

What changed?

We stopped talking.

The new routine was getting to my husband like nothing before. He came home sullen, silent, unwilling to share. I resented the silence more than the hours he spent away. Suddenly he was a stranger. We'd begun the downward spiral of shutting each other out.

Frustration, elation, apprehension, delight: These emotions dissapated in the vaccum across the dinner table and over the bedpillows each night.

I would weep quietly in the dark because I hated confrontation.

Another week passed and no sign of the ring. I scoured the car every chance I got. I had to find it.

The irony was, I hardly ever wore my ring because I have sensitive skin. The night I lost the ring was the first time I'd put it on again in a long, long time.

“Does losing your ring mean you guys are going to separate?” My older girl Sweet Pea quietly asked one night before bed.

“'Course not,” I said to myself, then louder, for her sake.

“But what does it mean?” She was insistent.

“It means... we get another ring, that's all.”

“Is it allowed?” Her eyes opened wide.

As with all innocent questions, the answers hit hard. Square in the jaw. Square in the face. Square on the head.


Sometimes it takes a child's mind to put the world in perspective.

Of course it's allowed. Everything is allowed. Because the ring's not the thing. It's a small, shiny bit of metal. Finding it would not solve the problems in my marriage. I was the only one who could solve the problems in my marriage.

So, this post is about love, right? It's been a wretched Taiwanese melodrama up to this point. But here's the love part. Pay attention.


Love is easy. Keeping the family close takes work.

I sat my husband down. I thanked him. For his hard work. For the days he spent driving to Ikea to haul furniture home. For the hours he spent in line at the Motor Vehicle Division making sure his licence (and mine) were in order. For the strong work ethic he was showing our daughter, even if it meant long evenings spent at the office.

Then I reminded him: I love you. I'm here. You've stopped seeing me, and I've stopped listening to you.We're too wrapped up in our individual worlds. We flew halfway around the world to keep the family together, but our internal guidance systems got fried somewhere over the Pacific, and now we're further apart than ever.

We both know this: Work is not going to hold your hand or mine on either of our deathbeds. We are the only ones who will. So we came up with new houserules, because this new vibe was not working: We had to kiss each other before he left for work, even if I was dead asleep. He would wake me up. Kiss me like there's no tomorrow, then start the day. Rinse and repeat at day's end.

Simple, right? Exactly.


Hi, I know you're there. I see you.

We did that for a week. We remembered each other. We kissed each other. We held on like there was no tomorrow. We carried each other, emotionally We talked. No complaints, no judgement, no whining.

The new routine became a habit. A good habit we had taken for granted, that had gotten lost in the big move. We forgot which box we left each other in. Never again.

There's an epilogue here. You'll like it.

Sweetpea was jingling a bunch of coins in the backseat some weeks after and they went flying. Naturally she hunted down every last one because she knows I hate a mess.

“Hey Mom! I think I found it!” She held up my ring. Triumphant.

It had fallen into a small nook beside baby's carseat. How Sweetpea saw it, when I failed to, how she dug it out, when I couldn't, is just one of life's mysteries.

“You're a very clever girl, my dear,” I said, with a smile. I didn't need the ring anymore. But I didn't tell her that. That would be my secret, and my husband's.


The item in question. As heavy or light as I want it to be.

The small bit of metal's gone back in the bathroom drawer. Just for safekeeping, you understand. Maybe I'll put it on again someday.