I wear two wedding rings — a fat gold band on my left hand and a slim silver one on my right. The silver ring belonged to my Great Aunt Ruth, who was my grandmother’s sister and the happiest member of our family.
Ruth didn’t seem to judge anyone, including herself. I can still hear her robust laugh.
At age 33 she married a wealthy older man and their wedding date is engraved inside the ring I wear — June 24, 1919. They traveled to Alaska on their honeymoon, and I have a photograph of Ruth waving from a rope bridge above the Yukon River.
Ruth and Frederick had one child who died at age eight. The following year they lost everything in the Depression. After Frederick’s death from Parkinson’s disease, Ruth lived alone until — at age 73 — she remarried, happily, and lived to celebrate her twentieth anniversary.
When Ruth died, I was still a young woman — too young to know much about suffering or seek her wisdom about how to face loss and embrace life.
She left me only her example. And her ring.
Writer Karen Anderson lives in Traverse City.
