The Rings of the Lord

[Dorie Ann – but now with an update from Jack] 20 years ago on Memorial weekend Jack suffered an unfortunate encounter with a jointer and lost the tops of 3 fingers on his left hand. Alas, he was wearing his wedding ring at the time so the ER medics had to cut it off. We did have it repaired but all the Florentine ornamentation and the inscriptions disappeared in the process. For years around our anniversary we’ve talked about getting new ones but I hated the thought of replacing my wedding ring. As our 40^th anniversary approached I began to wonder if it would be possible to combine the gold in our old rings and make them anew. I even decided that the new inscription should be 6/23/79 and our joint monogram with the S slightly larger than the J and the D. A local jeweler examined them and thought he could do it but wasn’t sure about the larger S. He’d give it his best shot. The attached photos show the result. Since our anniversary lands on a Sunday this year we picked a church that includes weekly wedding anniversary blessings and asked the Rector if he would bless our new old rings at the same time. So this Sunday will be very special to me.

• 

• 

• 

The other photos are somewhat related to the event.

• 

• 

We were married at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Morehead, KY. That little church had a rock garden filled with potted plants that parishioners would bring in the Spring and take back home in the Fall to care for them over the winter. My sister, Kathie, liked that idea and bought a small prayer plant the day before our wedding to add to the garden. It was to commemorate the baptism of her son, Dylan, baptized by Jack on June 22^nd. We took it home that Fall and have tended it ever since. It moved with us back to Lexington in 1981 and to Delaware in 1983. It survived driving through a blizzard on the Pennsylvania Turnpike in March 1989 as we moved it to Evergreen. It abided at 35^th Avenue Court, then Trinity Episcopal Church, then West 22^nd Street Road in Greeley. Now this well-traveled plant is back in Evergreen for who knows how long. Long may it thrive. (The black and white kitty is Pippin whose new favorite pastime is terrorizing the many hummingbirds who visit our feeders. She does this by launching herself at the bay window to frighten them off. They always come back. Some cats never learn.)

[Jack] Since Dorie Ann began with the rings and ended with the cat, I’ll start with cats and end with rings. During our engagement Dorie Ann was living in her house in Lexington and I in the vicarage in Morehead, some 65 miles away. On the weekends she would drive up and stay with the Bishop’s Warden and his wife next door. She also brought her two cats, Squeak, a very gentle tortoiseshell and Frisbee, a part Russian Blue with the personality of Attila the Hun. At the end of the visit she would try to pack them back into their traveling carrier. I said “try” because with each return, Frisbee would become more combative to the point where I finally offered to keep them with me in Morehead. Love makes us do crazy things. Mind you, I had nothing against cats. But I had nothing for them either. The three of us lived in a watchful truce until Dorie Ann and I married and she moved to Morehead. During that interim period I had to perform a daily task I had sworn to avoid — cleaning the litter box. Forty years later, that’s still my job. Did I mention that love makes us do crazy things?

So much for cats, now on to the rings. Dorie Ann is not that much of a jewelry person so we settled on simple gold band with the Florentine decoration. On Memorial Day Weekend (a traditional time for men to cut off body parts doing home projects), I caught my left hand in a jointer and lost the tops of my fingers. Because of my liturgical training, it was the tops of three fingers, being also Trinity Sunday weekend. The wounds have long since healed, even though I’m a bit short handed. My ring never fully recovered. The newly recast rings are quite striking, more so that our originals. For both of our future well being I’ve given up home remodeling as a hobby. I am still, however, cleaning cat boxes.