Oh, just more sad things

You know, while I was away from blogging I kept on thinking of things I wanted to write about.  I know people probably don't believe me on account of my occasionally loud external personality, but I do kind of  a lot of thinking.  (I may or may not be facetious right now.  I leave it up to you to decide what I would even have to be facetious about in this paragraph.  I make nothing easy on anyone.  I also might just be in a weird mood.  I might have finally redeemed my Starbucks birthday reward and gotten two extra shots of espresso in my caramel macchiato, simply because it was my birthday drink and it was freeeeee also I've always wondered what would happen to me with two extra shots of espresso and I think now I know.)

I never posted any of my musings because, well, this was a terrible year and I hated to admit to even myself that there were moments in which I was musing on other things.  But life goes thusly.

I went ahead and deleted all of those drafts this morning.  I just wasn't feeling it, also, venti Starbucks drinks sometimes, you know, make me delete things willy-nilly.  Anyhow, one of the posts I'd deleted had been some non-sensical musings (much like these?) about rings.

Rings?  rings.

You see, I remember years ago, seeing a widower, just a few months after his wife had died, with a bare left hand (had to Google which hand the wedding band goes on.  Left or right is not my best skill).  I had to wonder, looking stalkerishly at that empty ring finger, what sort of process it was to take that ring off.  What was the decision process, how did he decide it was time?  What sort of emotional toll does it even take on a human, to take off the symbol of commitment, because the person to whom you were committed has died?

It was kind of awful, actually, that day I noticed his bare hand.

But the reason I was thinking about it this summer, after all these years, was because I noticed another widower, whose wife has been with the Lord for the better part of a decade, whose ring is still firmly in place on his ring finger.  And I wondered: what does it feel like, to see that band, and know that its whole reason for existence is no more.  What sort of daily emotional roller coaster might that band represent?

I don't know why I didn't feel free to write about this over the summer, because it pretty much 100% matches my mood.  Which is to say: life is hard.  People make decisions all the time, people have to face those sorrows in the darkest cracks of their heart, and decide what steps to take, and what actions are right for them.  Because no matter what the choice is in this particular scenario (which is to say, when it's an appropriate time to remove a wedding band or not) it doesn't change the fact of it all, that the finality comes not with the removing the wedding ring or not, it comes with the painful separation that is death.  And I can tell you, I don't even have as much to be sad about as half the people I know, but my bruised-enough-as-it-is heart positively shudders at the thought of ever being in that position.  May the Lord grant immeasurable comfort to those who, for whatever reason, have to face these questions on a personal level.