Looking for Sparkles

I like sparkles but especially diamonds. I have expensive tastes but do not indulge myself. When I lost my wedding set (and I don’t want to rehash ancient history but it had one big diamond and 15 smaller ones), I replaced it with a gold band (no stones) that I got at a pawn shop for $65 and then later Sparky bought me an engagement ring (one small diamond) at another pawn shop for a whopping $170. I’ve been wearing them for the last 10 years.

When my mother heard that I’d lost my rings she gifted me with a couple of rings. They were very sparkly, so much so that it was obvious that they were not real (I checked). She loved wearing fancy rings. Although she had lots of costume jewelry, she also had lots of diamonds, emeralds, aquamarines, and even at one time sapphires and opals. It was kind of a thing for my father to take one of us girls with him to help pick out her Christmas gift at the jewelry store. After he died she had to buy her own rings. She liked to go to the pawn shops and check to see what they had for cheap.

After her funeral, my sisters and I went through her jewelry and divided it up among us. There were lots of high quality pieces. We each ended up with 11 rings. Of all the items I got, my favorite was her wedding band from her original set (a long story of cash strapped lovers). It was a very simple band with 3 teeny tiny diamond chips, well it was supposed to have 3 diamonds. One diamond was missing. Even though it is not the most expensive ring (pretty much worth a couple dollars if it were melted down), I decided to get it fixed. The jeweler suggested just junking it. Of course when he registered my look of horror at the suggestion, his tune shifted to “unless it has great sentimental value” then we can replace the diamond and put on new prongs. So I’m wearing that wedding band and it actually matches my engagement ring. I guess in the end I’m not as much into the diamonds as into having a touchstone…