Quick Take
Lookout columnist Claudia Sternbach can’t believe summer fruit is here and her beloved husband of 40 years is not. Michael died in February, two months after being diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer. Recently, she misplaced her wedding ring – the one he put on her finger just months before he died. Here, she writes of loss and longing and how unfair it is that time keeps moving forward as if nothing has changed.
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Peaches. How can there be peaches? And apricots. And nectarines? How can summer fruit already be filling the bins at the market?
Just yesterday it was February and Michael was dying of soft-tissue sarcoma after being diagnosed in late December. Fruit trees in the Central Valley were bare. Blossoms had not yet arrived, let alone small, hard green nuggets waiting to ripen. And now, we have peaches. Apricots. Nectarines.
It makes me angry. Pisses me off. How dare spring come and go. How dare summer be headed my way.
How does the world keep on turning from season to season? As if nothing has happened. As if nothing has changed.
Don’t even get me started on tomatoes.
Everywhere I look there are reminders of time moving forward without Michael. It feels cruel. Time is such a showoff.
“Go ahead, dig in your heels,” says Time, “but you can’t stop me, can’t even slow me down. I will continue to move forward and you have no other option than to come along for the ride, so hang on.”
But it is nice that I am becoming aware of food. For several weeks, my appetite has been missing in action. I regret giving away a wonderful, all-purpose blue dress as it was beginning to feel as if its purpose was to strangle me. I believe now I would be able to slip into it with ease.
I have had to poke a hole in my favorite belt to cinch it a bit tighter.
And the other morning as I stood in the shower, I realized I was missing my wedding ring. Even my fingers had lost a bit of plumpness. Panic set in. Where had I been? How long had my finger been unadorned?
This just could not be. I had waited 40 years to have a wedding ring and now, not even a year after Michael placed it on my finger, I had lost it.
Last Oct. 8 was our 40th wedding anniversary. We celebrated like there would be no tomorrow – not knowing how little time we had left. Not knowing Michael would be diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer in December and would take end-of-life meds two months later.
One evening, a few weeks before that big anniversary day, back when we knew nothing, Michael came home from work and asked me if I might like to go looking at wedding rings. When we had exchanged our vows all those decades before, we gave each other rings made out of Mexican pesos. We were living in Mexico at the time it made perfect sense. And the price of said rings was exactly within our budget.
Not long after, Michael stopped wearing his peso and then claimed to have lost it and swore he would never again wear any kind of jewelry. Soon my peso ring worked its way to the back of my drawer. Without its mate, it felt kind of silly.
My ring finger stayed empty and I didn’t give it any thought. Not until Michael popped the question. “Do you want to look at rings?”
Michael spent his whole adult life working behind the parts counter at C&N Tractors in Watsonville. He had one lovely customer who had a need for a tractor and parts, but was also a full-time jewelry designer. After chatting at the parts counter one afternoon, he asked Michael just what kind of wedding ring I had. Michael confessed that really I didn’t have one.
“Bring her in to see me,” the jewelry designer said.
Thus the question: “Want to look at rings?”
I did. My excitement surprised both of us. Since I had never complained or really even thought about it, I didn’t expect his question to move me one way or the other. But I was moved. I was as excited as a new bride even after 40 years.
The following Saturday, Michael and I visited a delightful jewelry store in Aptos and soon I was slipping rings on and off my finger like I had been born to do this. I chose easily. And, as I stood outside admiring how the sunlight caused it to sparkle like Fourth of July fireworks, I realized 40 years after getting married is a perfect time to commit to a ring. And with any kind of luck, I thought, we will both take pleasure in its beauty and what it represents for decades to come.
And now, along with losing Michael to cancer, I had lost it.
I looked to see if I might have placed it on the kitchen windowsill while doing the dishes. Nothing.
I went out into the garage and looked in the washing machine, the dryer. I wondered about the backyard. Could it have slipped off when I tossed some ivy cuttings over the back fence? That would be an impossible treasure to find in the tangle of ivy and poison oak.
It was not on my nightstand or on my cluttered dresser. I checked the pockets of my jeans and did find a $5 bill, but no ring. I continued to recheck places I had already explored, but came up empty each time.
My chest felt tight and I struggled to hold back tears. I stayed home all day, afraid to leave the house where I just knew my ring was hiding. Somehow it felt as if I was losing Michael all over again and I didn’t think I could bear it.
I had been unaware of how much that little bit of sparkle now meant to me. It really was a symbol of Michael’s love.
Oh, I look around and see proof of his love everywhere, but this, too, was important. Very important. He had placed it on my finger while looking me in the eyes and telling me what I have always known, that he loved me.
That night, after a few episodes of whatever on Netflix, I climbed into bed and began to straighten the tangle of sheets and moved the pillow to fluff it up a bit and tried to get comfortable. The missing ring haunted me. I rolled over on to my back and reached to pull up my weighted blanket and there, tucked into a fold, was my ring. It had slipped off during the night and had been sleeping there all along.
I did cry then, tears of relief. I realized I just could not stand one more loss. Not now. Not now.
I have wrapped a piece of tape around the band and will wear it like that until I have time to get it resized.
Yesterday, I bought my first summer peaches. I bought nectarines. And then I stopped at Ace Hardware and bought an apricot pie to slide into the oven. Soon, I will be visiting my favorite produce stand to buy tomatoes.
I cannot stop the seasons. But perhaps I can eat my sorrows, rather than wage a battle against time passing that no one has ever won.