Peg Kerr's Journal

I've been doing these collages for several years, and somehow I've focused on the same subject during this week each year. January 26 is the anniversary of Rob's death in 2018.

This year, I really wanted to do a different subject. I mean, the grief is still there (and will always be there) but I can talk about other things, I promise.

And this week, I definitely have something different to speak of, something that makes me very happy! And yet, oddly enough, it has prodded my grief a bit, so I will end up speaking about Rob after all.

Alona and Fiona have given me permission to share some news publicly that I have been sitting on for several months: They are expecting a baby, who will be born in June. (Alona is the person who is carrying the baby.) They have done genetic testing, and the baby is just fine and entirely healthy. (Alona, alas, has been having a difficult time with nausea and other unpleasant symptoms, and we would appreciate it if that settled down. Thank you.)

I am delighted with this news. But of course, there is that underlying twinge of sadness for Rob, again, that he will never see or hold his grandchildren. He would have loved the experience, just as I will.

That's the thing about grief and widowhood: the losses keep playing out, even years later.

This collage includes a picture of him holding Fiona on the day that she was born. Here is another one:



Image description: An ultrasound of a fetus. Lower left corner: a man (Rob) looks down with an expression of wonder at a bundled baby in his lap. Lower right: a hand cups a pair of infant feet

Baby



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I am sure there is no suspense whatsoever about what this week's collage would be about.

The wedding, as I said in my last post, was lovely and touching. Although they hadn't coordinated it at all, Fiona and Alona both mentioned the same point when exchanging their vows. Each had experienced heartache in the past from partners who had refused to put them first. That was why this was such a joyful day because both knew that they would always be first in the eyes and the heart of one another.

There was an interesting variation in the promises made when they exchanged rings. They had purchased beautiful rings for one another, but in the lines of the service, each promised to wear the rings 'on my hand or over my heart.' It wasn't until a couple of days later that I figured it out: Fiona is going to enter a career as a plumber. For reasons of safety, she is not allowed to wear any rings on her hand while she is on the job. I can only presume that she will wear the ring, when it is not on her hand, strung on a necklace around her neck.

Unfortunately, one picture I failed to capture during the day was of their handfasting ribbons, so I went out looking for photographs of handfasting ribbons in blue, green, and brown. I found the photo used in this collage, but the ribbons were blue, green, and purple. I learn something every time I make one of these collages--I feel rather smug that I figured out how to change the purple ribbon to brown.

I also took care with the Hebrew translation of 'I choose you' (Alona is Jewish). I checked with a friend who confirmed the construction of the sentence as it would be spoken to a woman, rather than the text that Google Translate gave me, which would be spoken to a man. I'm glad I took the trouble to double-check.

Image description: Two women (Alona and Fiona) stand smiling on their wedding day with an officiant (Jory). their hands clasped in front of a fireplace decked with flowers. At the top center of the collage in English and bottom center in Hebrew are the words "I choose you." The Hebrew words overlay an arrangement of handfasting ribbons in blue, green, and brown.

Wedding



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Okay, this tore my heart out a little.

Today is Fiona’s wedding day. And this is the picture that was displaying in the digital frame when I came downstairs this morning.

Rob sends his love.

The last two years of this collage project, I have produced cards commemorating the Thanksgiving celebrations I've had with my family. The card for this week is, in a way, a Thanksgiving card, too, only it comes at the concept from a slightly different angle.

First of all, we received word on Wednesday that Fiona has been accepted into the St. Paul plumber's apprenticeship program. She has been working faithfully in her employer's warehouse since May, pulling plumbing fittings, throughout the 100-degree heat this summer. Had she not been picked (they only accept one candidate out of three) she would have had to wait a whole more year to apply again (unless she were to try her luck with a different city's union). Now she will get a raise and begin combining classes with her job. The program will take five years for her to finish. This is wonderful news and we are all absolutely overjoyed for her.

The other wonderful happening this past Wednesday is a longer story, but trust me, it's worth it.

Rob and I got married in 1986. We picked out our wedding rings on Valentine's Day of that year. My ring had a brilliant cut diamond of modest size, about a third of a carat. I loved my ring and wore it proudly.

About fifteen or twenty years into our marriage, I happened to look down at my hand while I was in the shower, only to find that the diamond in the ring was missing. My heart plummeted. I shut off the water immediately and searched the tub, but I feared that the stone had washed down the drain. Anyway, the diamond was gone.

Now as it happened, Rob and I had been going through a rough patch. We were really strapped for money. But I didn't hesitate a moment. I had all the information on the stone and went back to the jeweler. They said that the ring was insured and for a nominal deductible, I could get the diamond replaced. So I did, getting another brilliant cut diamond of a similar grade. Rob told me later how much hope and comfort it gave him, that despite our troubles, my response was to immediately replace the diamond in my ring. It showed him my commitment to the two of us, knowledge he badly needed at the time.

About a month later, Delia came to me in great excitement. "Mom, you're not going to believe this. I found the diamond from your ring."

The girls' room was incredibly cluttered at this point in our family life. But one day as she was shifting piles of stuff from one part of the floor to the other, she spied a glint and immediately picked up the diamond.

It seemed like such a miracle. I thought hard about it, and then took both the diamond and the ring back to the jeweler and explained the situation. "If you want me to give the new diamond back, I understand. I put in the claim in all good faith, thinking it was lost."

"Nah," the jeweler said. "The claim has been processed by our insurance company, and you're clearly not trying to pull anything over on us. You paid the deductible. The new diamond is yours."

So I put my wedding ring back on, and I put the original stone in a plastic bag and placed it in one of my jewelry storage trays.

When Rob passed away, I wore my wedding ring for almost a year, but eventually, when I started seeing Eric, I took it off and stored it in the jewelry trays. "I have two diamonds now," I told the girls. "Each of you can have one now if you like when you marry."

Several months later, I found a plastic bag on the floor of my bedroom. I discerned at a glance that it was empty, and I threw it away.

Fast forward to last year when Fiona announced that she was engaged. "Would you like one of the diamonds for your ring?" I asked. "Or you can put it in a ring to give to Alona." I went to my jewelry box--but the plastic bag with the diamond in it was gone. I suddenly remembered that plastic bag I had so thoughtlessly thrown away. Surely I hadn't carelessly discarded the miraculously rediscovered diamond--had I? I had thought the bag was empty! I dug through the trash basket, despite knowing that I had already taken that batch of trash out, and I combed over and over through the carpet.

I felt sick. I felt, absurdly, that I had let Rob down, losing the diamond he had given me not just once but twice. Now only one of my girls would get a diamond from me. Fiona tried to comfort me: "The ring I’ve picked out already has a diamond, and Alona doesn't even want a stone. It's okay, Mommy. Let Delia have the remaining diamond." I tried to let it go, but it just added to all the grief I felt at losing Rob.

Now we come to the events of this week. The carpets in my house looked awful--the wall-to-wall carpet upstairs is over thirty years old. So I asked my sister if I could borrow her carpet cleaner.

I spent hours Wednesday shifting stuff from the corners of the rooms and thoroughly vacuuming everything, using the attachment to get into the weird angles and along the baseboard. Then I went over everything again with the carpet cleaner. The water, when I emptied it into the toilet, was black and filthy.

Altogether, I worked at it for over four hours. Finally, exhausted, I sat down on my bed and gave a deep sigh. And then I happened to glance down at the floor.

There, glinting in reflection from the overhead light, was the diamond. Right between my feet.

I thought it had washed down the drain. Then I thought I had thrown it away. By all rights, I should have swept it up with either the vacuum cleaner or the carpet cleaner. But somehow or other, here it was again, back in my trembling hand: the diamond that had been in the ring that Rob had put on my finger on our wedding day. The bag HAD fallen out of the jewelry tray, but somehow, the diamond had fallen out of the bag and then hidden itself in the carpet until I found it again. Maybe running the vacuum cleaner and carpet cleaner over it had merely polished it up so that I could see it again.

That diamond has more damned lives than a cat.

My wish for you this Thanksgiving is that you have the moments of transcendent joy that I have had this week.

Background: a beige carpet. Center top: a carpet cleaning machine. Underneath is the logo for the St. Paul Local 34 Plumber and Gasfitters Union. A woman's hand hovers over the words "Local 34," reaching for a brilliant-cut diamond superimposed over the bottom of the logo. Underneath the diamond is a woman's gold wedding ring, set with another diamond.

Euphoria



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