The Ring
The day of Mom's funeral service, after we all returned to my sister's house and after we had spent a few hours eating, playing bid euchre, and reminiscing, my dad took me aside, saying he wanted me to go over to his place. I followed him into the little cabin he had built very lovingly from the ground up, wondering what was on his mind. In the bedroom, he placed Mom's jewelry box on the bed's puffy comforter and said, "Take whatever you want. Your mom wanted you to have anything you like." For a second I stood and looked at the family photos Mom had slipped into the frames built into the jewelry box lid, one for each of her children. The smiles captured during special moments eased a bit of my sadness and I started picking up the different pieces. I knew several of the broaches had been my grandmother's, so I selected those. A couple of the bracelets came from Mom's early years following the diagnosis of the MS, when she would sit on the couch, watc...