The Ring on the Chain

You can spot her across the room. The widow with her husband’s wedding ring on a chain around her neck. While it’s true that people sometimes wear a ring on a chain around their neck for other reasons – a family heirloom or because it no longer fits a finger – far and away the most likely explanation is that it’s the wedding band belonging to the wearer’s beloved. I spied one on my widowed husband’s neck the first time we went out together, and 20 years later, I wore his for the longest time. I still do, sometimes tucked underneath my shirt so only I know it is there, or on special occasions front and centre, paired with other jewelry he gave me that has deep sentimental value.    

There are as many reasons to wear this ‘widow’s accessory’ as there are people. For many, wearing your beloved’s ring next to your heart is as close as you can get to evoking their presence. Who hasn’t slipped on an old shirt or kept a bottle of aftershave to comfort/ torture yourself with from time to time? Keeping their wedding ring close to your skin can be a tangible reminder of the love you still feel. Like continuing to wear your own wedding band, it can also be a way of saying “I still feel married to you.” 

And of course, it sends a signal to the world. Continuing to wear your own ring marks you as married in the eyes of the world, and the ring on the chain says “I am still grieving the person who wore this ring.” Any astute observer will take it in and come to their own conclusions. So choosing to wear it not only is a personal private gesture; it is a public one. And for many people, it’s a way of saying your primary relationship is still with the person who passed and you’re not looking for a replacement (See Irreplaceable in ‘Early Days.’)

And yet, for many of us, there comes a time when remembering and memorializing our beloved becomes more of an inward pilgrimage with less need of external reminders, both to ourselves and others. Many religions and cultures have a way of marking this passage of time and grief – wearing black for a prescribed period of time or returning to the grave to dedicate the headstone one year after the passing. These rituals have a way of acknowledging that grief moves and transforms, that the river of life bears us forward on its unpredictable currents. You awake one morning months, even years after losing someone to discover that, even though the grief is still there, you are not in exactly the same place you once were. 

Being widowed is similarly a strange journey from married to widowed to single. Somehow each of these transitions has its own timeline and everyone’s journey is unique. It’s a shock when you’ve been happily married to suddenly find the word ‘widow’ attached to your name and it’s a surprise when the ‘widow’ label grows over time into simply feeling single. Not everyone experiences these transitions the same way and some don’t make them at all. Some feel married to their beloved their whole life long and nothing can change that, while others, taking the time to mourn and heal, hope for love reborn when they are ready. My husband and I were married about a year and a half after he was widowed; almost 6 years after losing him, I have no interest in another love. There’s no right or wrong answer or timeline, only individual people coming to terms with their loss and mapping out what life will look like, how they feel and who they now understand themselves to be. 

And every widow’s situation is unique; the widow who loses her childhood sweetheart after more than 50 years of marriage is in a different life stage than the widow in her early 30s who hasn’t given up on the dream of children and the possibility of loving again. Some people are truly content on their own, filling their lives with friends, activities, plans and  projects while others deeply desire to be re-partnered. Older widows may feel their chances of finding new love are slim, yet I have married couples in their 80s who were as giddy as teenagers! Not every young widow with children wants to bring step-parents and siblings into their children’s already upended lives, yet others find the blended family formed by new love brings possibilities for growth, joy and new life that they had never imagined. 

So how do you know when to tuck your darling’s ring into the drawer? When is it time to venture forth simply as yourself, rather than someone who is marked by grief or defined by loss? And how and when, if ever, might you open your heart to the possibility of love again? All I can say in response is to quote the poet Emily Dickinson, who lived her whole life in her parents’ home, whose love life is still relatively unknown and yet who wrote some of the most passionate love poems ever written in the English language *

“That love is all there is, is all we know of love.”  

However you move forward into your life, make sure that it is full of love. This is the best tribute you can offer to the Great Love you are blessed to have known. And there as many ways to do this as there are people. 

You can feel married for the rest of your life, finding ways to celebrate that love and make it a source of light to the world.

You can be happily single and explore new paths to love and meaning in interests, friends, family, causes and passions.

You can want to be partnered again and choose to actively seek out a new love.

You can be open to love but leave it up to chance and see what the universe has in store!

One thing is certain, if you do find a new partner, they will need to be someone who understands the place in your heart for the love you have lost and is able to walk with you in your grief. They will need to be confident in the love you build together and patient when you want to walk alone in the garden of remembrance. They will need to bring happiness to your door while understanding that joy and sorrow can dwell side by side, indeed they always have. 

You’ll know if and when to take that ring off its chain and find a new place for it in the treasure box of memories you keep.