Making the Band
Wanna know a secret?
Work is pretty easy when everyone is pretty uncomfortable talking to you.
At least...that's how it felt upon my return.
Nobody asked me to do anything.
Nobody needed my help.
People would stop by and say "Hey, I meant to call you" or "Are you doing okay?"
I felt kind of bad for these folks so I pretty much kept to myself and continued packing my belongings as I was moving to a new cube.
I ended up doing something weird for lunch. I drove out to Long Beach and ate at my dad's house. I told myself it was just so I could pick up the mail.
I still have no idea what I was doing there.
Before leaving Long Beach to head back to work, I found some rings that I hadn't noticed before. Three of them were pretty cheesy. The fourth was a simple gold band. I scooped them all up and put them in my pocket.
After work, I returned back to my house and my Mom was giving the Chicken a bath.
I typically empty my pockets and place their contents on a desk near the front door.
The gold band remained in my hand.
I took it to the bathroom and asked my Mom if she recognized it.
Her initial reaction to the band was pretty strange.
She went sheet white with her mouth agape to laughter in a matter of seconds.
"That's your father's wedding band!" she exclaimed.
I had thought it might be but I wasn't expecting this big of a deal about it.
"Why are you laughing, Mom?"
"Because when things were bad between the two of us, he had told me that he threw it into the ocean. I can't believe he still had it!"
I couldn't either. Why did he keep it? Why was it rattling around in his sock drawer? What was the point in keeping? And what made him tell my Mom that he threw it away?
It's funny to me that his attempt to hurt my Mom's feelings eventually backfired on him. In the end, my Mom now knows that he cared enough to hold on to the one remnant of their marriage and it was obvious to me that she appreciated it.
By keeping that band and leaving it somewhere where I could find it, he told me everything that I needed to know about how he felt about the marriage that brought myself and Number 2 into this world.
I think, for now, I'm going to hold on to that band.
VW
Work is pretty easy when everyone is pretty uncomfortable talking to you.
At least...that's how it felt upon my return.
Nobody asked me to do anything.
Nobody needed my help.
People would stop by and say "Hey, I meant to call you" or "Are you doing okay?"
I felt kind of bad for these folks so I pretty much kept to myself and continued packing my belongings as I was moving to a new cube.
I ended up doing something weird for lunch. I drove out to Long Beach and ate at my dad's house. I told myself it was just so I could pick up the mail.
I still have no idea what I was doing there.
Before leaving Long Beach to head back to work, I found some rings that I hadn't noticed before. Three of them were pretty cheesy. The fourth was a simple gold band. I scooped them all up and put them in my pocket.
After work, I returned back to my house and my Mom was giving the Chicken a bath.
I typically empty my pockets and place their contents on a desk near the front door.
The gold band remained in my hand.
I took it to the bathroom and asked my Mom if she recognized it.
Her initial reaction to the band was pretty strange.
She went sheet white with her mouth agape to laughter in a matter of seconds.
"That's your father's wedding band!" she exclaimed.
I had thought it might be but I wasn't expecting this big of a deal about it.
"Why are you laughing, Mom?"
"Because when things were bad between the two of us, he had told me that he threw it into the ocean. I can't believe he still had it!"
I couldn't either. Why did he keep it? Why was it rattling around in his sock drawer? What was the point in keeping? And what made him tell my Mom that he threw it away?
It's funny to me that his attempt to hurt my Mom's feelings eventually backfired on him. In the end, my Mom now knows that he cared enough to hold on to the one remnant of their marriage and it was obvious to me that she appreciated it.
By keeping that band and leaving it somewhere where I could find it, he told me everything that I needed to know about how he felt about the marriage that brought myself and Number 2 into this world.
I think, for now, I'm going to hold on to that band.
VW
posted by JVW at 9:30 PM
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