My first death of a loved one.

We buried my grandmother on Monday. It was... so hard. So much harder than anything I can ever remember. When I walked into the room with her body, I immediately began to cry, and my feet stopped at the door of their own volition and refused to take me any further. My father, crying too, had to come and put his arms around my shoulders and guide me to chair further in the room. It took about an hour for me to muster the courage to approach the casket and look at her. Everyone had been saying how good and peaceful she looked, but when I finally stepped up, I didn't think so at all. Whatever was in that coffin wasn't my grandmother, it was just a thing. A misleading thing, because I knew I'd held those those hands, and hugged that waist and brushed that hair. It was both familiar and foreign, loved and estranged, her and not her.

We made it though, however, with more than a little family drama that I don't want to get into. Everyone was leaving the next day, so I insisted that the women in the family go through her jewelry and pick out the things they wanted. She had already left her two rings of monetary value to her grandchildren. My cousin Laura got her wedding and engagement rings, and she left me her diamond dinner ring. These were the rings she wore every day since I can remember. As a kid I spent every summer with my grandma, and I always stared at her flower-shaped diamond ring. I'd play with it, and she'd get a kick out of me twirling it around on her finger. She let me try it on all the time. She always said "You get this ring when I die," but she said it so cavalierly that I had no more than a fleeting unease about the whole business. I wonder if she could even fathom how much it would hurt to see that ring handed to me. I know I couldn't.

But I had this burning desperation to go through her other jewelry (and not just her jewelry, but my impulse was to raid everything in her room and closet). I didn't know where it came from, and it made me feel like a horrible person. Like I was stealing from her. I'm sure everyone thought I was being terrible and greedy. But we did sit down and go through her jewelry together. We laughed at her martini necklace and her very large and colorful Egyptian earrings. We reminisced about how she wore that pearl necklace to my Aunt's wedding or those anchor earrings all the time. I took more then I felt was my fair share, and I couldn't understand this impulse. Why did I want these things so badly? I put them all in one of her boxes and tucked it away. On the flight home, even though I didn't check my bag, I couldn't bear to pack it and I kept it on my lap the entire flight, even putting on more then was necessary while I was dressed in one of her large sweatshirts (given to me by my Aunt). I put it on the seat next to me on the drive home.

It only occurred to me tonight how much I wish I could go back and just take everything. Everything she ever touched, looked at, smelled or had near her. Everything I remember and don't remember. Her hairbrush, her makeup, her ratty housecoat. I want to wrap myself in a cocoon of her things and sleep. It makes me feel like I'm still connected to her, like she's still alive (at least in a way). I miss her so much.

The story of the diamond dinner ring, which I had never bothered to ask when she was alive, is this:

My grandparents married in the late 40's. My grandmother was a housewife and my grandfather is a very frugal man (to a fault). He never bought my grandmother gifts. Not for her birthday, Christmas, or anything. The way he put it is he just handed her the checkbook and tried to keep his mouth shut. She bought what she wanted. Well, she was "bitching" (again, my grandfather's word) that he never bought her things. So, sometime in the 70's my grandfather told his oldest, my Aunt Nancy, to pick something out for her. He gave her a budget and sent her on her way. My aunt had this ring made and gave it to him to give to her for Christmas. She was supremely surprised and it was a really big deal for them. Then, he never bought her anything ever again.

It's funnier than it seems on print. My grandfather loved my grandmother very much. He took amazing care of her right up until the end, and the only time I've ever seem him cry was at the funeral. Their 61 year journey together has come to an end, and it's a very profound thing for him. I worry. But to know that I've inherited this ring that meant so much to her, that was born of love and happiness, and that saw so much of her life, is unspeakably meaningful to me. I can think of nothing I own that could possibly ever mean more. It's not mine, but I am its caretaker now. It will see my life, and my grandchildren's lives, and who knows how far it will get, but it will always belong to Mary Elizabeth Shirley.