This Week's Song - Proud Mary by Tina Turner - We danced in the living room, then Shelby said, "Do it again, Daddy."
I walked into Diftler’s Jewelers in downtown Knoxville on a cold December day in 1991. Nathan Diflter had sold my father a great many pieces of jewelry over the years. He was so kind to me, patient and proud of his role in the traditions and ceremonies of love. Cheryl and I were graduating from college, and I’d been in his shop previously with her so she could show me the “type” of ring she liked. You know, in the event I decided to marry her one day. She showed me the "type" of ring in several jewelry stores. She liked things done her way. However, on this occasion, I was by myself and on a mission. I didn’t have any money, or at least not much of it. I was about to go to law school. I wasn’t going without her.
She wanted a small stone with something called baguettes on both sides of the diamond. She was willing to skimp on the size of the main stone for additional diamonds that bookended them. She didn’t want flashy. She didn't want expensive. Instead, she gravitated toward classy and understated, which was the perfect description of the girl and then the woman. She was and would always be specific on the way things had to be - the temperature in the car, the blinds in our house, the “schedule” of grandparents visiting on Christmas day, and the way we had to put Shelby into the specific Graco car seat she hand picked. Our registries - wedding and then baby - were so precise and strategically planned they reminded me of my calculus course in college. It wasn’t control so much as meticulous organization. A plan. Nothing left to chance or my silly whims. I put a downpayment on the ring and its companion wedding band (they had to be a matched set), signed an agreement for installments, and walked out onto a leaf-covered sidewalk, the ring in my pocket and my breath rising like smoke into the air. I was never so happy to be broke. I knew she would say yes, but I was thrilled to make her plan work. Perhaps that is the essence of love.
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| Cheryl, Shelby & The Ring |
It was a Christmas engagement and a July wedding - just as she wanted. It was perfect, as was the wedding and years that followed - Law degree, house purchase, jobs, birth of Shelby and Andy, two cars, picket fence, and the ring always exactly where it was meant to be. Tea Parties and dancing to Proud Mary in the living room, slow at first, and then fast when Tina hit the tempo. We were rolling. We were on track and playing by the play book, following Cheryl's blueprint. Right up until October of 2000.
In the emergency department that day, after doctors told us what we knew but did not understand, Melissa, our dear friend, implored me to take the engagement ring from her hand. “You have to save it for Shelby.” It seemed so ridiculous to even consider. All of it was ridiculous - the doctors, the nurses, the lines, the beeping machines. She was 31. We'd been hosting friends just minutes before. My initial instinct was a simple "no." It was Cheryl’s prize. She did not covet material things in her life. She coveted the ring. Against my instinct and at the instruction of people who love me, my last act in her presence was to take her prized possession from her. Shelby was only 4 years old and at home waiting for us, waiting for her. There were tickets for the three of us to see Tina Turner in a couple of hours. What was a 4-year-old going to do with a ring? It felt disrespectful, an act so final as I sat with her for the final moments, issuing promises while the last vestiges of false hope lingered with the smell of her shampoo and the warmth of her hand. I walked out through the sliding doors of the ER alone. It was the end of a warm fall day and of the life Shelby, Andy, and I had known. I stood on the sidewalk with the ring, once again, in my pocket.
It has rested in a jewelry case for nearly 22 years. I don't have much jewelry. It is where I keep a watch or two, a pledge pin and my own wedding band, the one she slipped on my hand that long-gone July day. There is also a bracelet, a regretful purchase from my junior year in high school. For some reason I can’t let that one go. I’ll save it for another column. During the years the ring has been at rest, I have found love, a beautiful love I could not have imagined, and together we have raised our children - hers and mine. They call Nancy "Mom," and mean it. We are a happy lot. Like the woman, Cheryl's memory is stubborn and relentless. She is with us, all of us, a warm and sweet whisper. Her name is on our lips, and she is a welcome friend in our home, often appearing in an unspoken admonition, a happy encouragement, or, most commonly, embodied in the little girl who is yet to see Tina Turner sing Proud Mary. Shelby has grown to a beautiful, confident and amazing woman. She is the perfect combination of the loving, independent mother who raised her and the one who delivered her into this world with poise and class embedded in her DNA.
My suspicions were raised when Stuart asked if he could take me to breakfast. He was visiting with Shelby from Washington for the Georgia game and had heard so much about Pete’s, my favorite downtown diner. We took our seats as Stormy and Tecia, my friends and favorite waitresses, milled around behind the counter cutting sideways glances. Joey and his father, Pete, looked on between the shelves in the kitchen. Like my usual, blueberry pancakes, I knew what was about to happen. It was a moment. Our family has loved Stuart since Shelby met him, but one thing we particularly love about him is his sense of history - Shelby’s history. He knew about the ring and humbly asked what I thought about him presenting Cheryl’s prized possession to her little girl when he asked her to marry him. I insisted. Permission was given. We shook hands and hugged, sealing our secret among good people and the smell of bacon and black coffee.
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| The Ring |
When they left to return to Washington two days later, I walked out onto the sidewalk with the ring in my pocket one last time. I slipped it to Stuart with a note. I was proud and hopeful. More than that, I was happy that Shelby's plan was working out, for I've known there was a blueprint.
On the weekend before Christmas, at the top of a snow-covered mountain range in Central Washington, near the camp where they met, a good young man removed Cheryl's ring from his pocket and placed it on our baby's finger, completing the circle and bringing a promised light from the dark. It was exactly where it was meant to be. A rainbow appeared and quickly slipped away as she said yes. I have the pictures to prove it.
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| Stuart, Shelby, and a Rainbow |
There will be a July wedding. I stand in awe as Shelby plans with such exacting detail. You cannot begin to imagine the things we inherit. I’ll walk her down the aisle just as she and I giggled about at tea parties with stuffed animals in our small house on Belleaire Drive at the peak of our innocence. To a father, his little girl is always 4 years old, dancing in the living room, serving tea and talking to stuffed animals. That is where the tears at the top of the aisle will come from.
We cannot comprehend it, but in our darkest time there is a flicker of light we cannot see. May you find the light in whatever darkness you encounter.
