sunday Favorites #47 --The Ruby Ring

Sunday Favorites is a meme hosted by Chari at Happy to Design. Chari asks us to drag one of our older posts out of mothballs and repost it. After all, only so many posts can be on the first page and once they move down the stack they are seldom ever looked at again.

You can check out this Sunday meme by visiting Happy to Design. Heck, you might find some great stuff and be inspired to join the fun and repost some of your favorites that have been long forgotten.

The Ruby Ring was originally posted as my first entry for the meme Ruby Tuesday in February, 2009. I have deleted the original meme header but you will find a link to the Ruby Tuesday meme at the end of the story. It is a great meme devoted to the color red and I suggest your visit those with red post or perhaps post your own red story or photos. Now on to my story.

The Ruby Ring

On my sixteenth birthday my godmother (also my Aunt) sent me a note stating that she had a special gift for me but I would have to wait awhile to receive it. She explained that I would have to stop biting my fingernails before she would give it to me.

Naturally, I assumed it was going to be a ring (my first ever) so I worked hard at sitting on my hands each time the urge to chew a nail happened. By spring I had short but well manicured nails and proudly wrote to my Aunt announcing my success.

Unfortunately, it was almost the next year before my Aunt was able to come for a visit and I was presented with the most beautiful birthstone ring I had ever seen. It was a gold ring with four rubies. I was so proud of the ring I wore it constantly, only taking it off to do the dishes.

That summer my godmother's daughter(my cousin), who was my age came for an extended visit and during her stay told me why I had to wait so long to receive my present. She said my aunt was a housekeeper for a gentleman who owned a pawn shop and she purchased the ring in his shop on layaway. She was a widow raising four children on a meager salary and there were many weeks when she could only spare one dollar for the payment on her gift to me. It took her almost two years to pay off the ring. She invented the nail biting ruse hoping it would give her enough time to complete the purchase. It failed so she resorted to making excuses to postpone her visit.

I had been wearing my beautiful ring for about a year when I started dating a guy named Buddy. By Christmas the relationship was getting rocky so I was surprised when he invited me to have dinner at his house and meet his parents. After dinner I volunteered to wash the dishes for Buddy's mother. I put my ring on the window ledge above the sink. By the time I finished washing the dishes (all by myself) I realized it was getting late and I had promised to be home early. In the rush to get home on time, I forgot to get my ring from the window ledge. When I realized I had forgotten my ring I called Buddy and asked him to bring it to me the next day. Buddy said the ring was not on the window ledge. The ring had disappeared even though Buddy and his parents were the only ones living there and it had only been a short while since I had left. We argued over what could have happen to it and Buddy promised to ask his parents about it and search the entire house for it.

I'm sure by now you have figured out that the ring never turned up and Buddy and I broke up a few days later. I was so distressed over the loss of my ring that I never had the courage to tell my Aunt about losing it.

Almost two years later I was working part time in a local cafe. One night, two women came in and took a seat in the corner. I went to wait on them and as I handed the menu to the younger lady I noticed my ring on her finger. I told her she was wearing my ring and asked where she got it. She said it was a Christmas gift from her fiance. I quickly told her that I could not only name her fiance but, could tell her which Christmas she received the ring, and preceded to do just that.

The lady turned nine shades of red and the other woman who happened to be her mother said "Well, I declare". Lucky for me, Buddy's fiance was a lot more honest than he deserved. She took my ring from her finger and gave it back to me. I am sure she would consider the ring a fair trade for discovering Buddy's true character before she married him. That was forty-two years ago and I have never taken it off my finger since unless I was placing it in my jewelry box.

To join the Ruby Tuesday fun visit http://workofthepoet.blogspot.com/