The 7 Dollar Wedding Ring

You would really have to know me to know the full effect of just how interested in people's stories I am and how unafraid I am to talk to anyone or ask a question if I am just so curious I have to know. This afternoon, I went to grab some lunch for everyone up the street at this little cafe/deli. The line was a little long and as I was waiting, I casually mentioned to the woman standing in front of me, "I like your scarf", which she in turn replied, "I like your hat". Because of the longish line, we began a casual conversation. Casual went to solemn when Frank Sinatra came over the speakers and she said "Oh, my husband loved Frank Sinatra, we saw him at the Cotton Club the day after we were married........he passed away 2 months ago." I said how sorry I was, to which she replied, "we were married 63 years. We met at the beach when I was 15 and he was 18 and I knew I loved him the minute I looked at him." She went on to tell me that he had been shipped off to World War II and she promised to wait for him and when he got back (she was 17), they ran off and eloped to City Hall, to the horror of her disapproving parents. I said, "Weren't you scared, weren't they angry" And cutie pie said "Oh hunny, I was in love, you know how you are when you are in love. He was the love of my life, I would have followed him to the ends of the earth." She said they had $75.00 IN TOTAL to their name, to put a down payment on an apartment, buy a week's worth of food, a wedding license AND a wedding ring! She said her wedding ring was $7.00 from a street vendor in Brooklyn and the most precious item that she has ever owned. In fact, when he once tried to replace it years later when he became an officer, she was offended and said that the one she already owned was just perfect.
And the whole time she told these stories with a smile. I could have listened to her life biography if I had had the time. All we had at the moment was my co-worker's phone camera and I made her stop for this picture. ***She pulled a chain from beneath her sweater just before I left and said "Oh, this is the ring, I wear it close to my heart." And there it was, a little tiny lookin' gold ring. A lifetime of love and memories circled inside. It warmed and broke my heart at the same time.

***This is just an interesting historical fact that I learned that I had to include. When she had said her husband was in WWII, she said that what he had been trained to do in combat, specifically, was drive those little boats to the shore to drop off soldiers and ammunition and that he was infact driving one of the boats on D-Day. Some of you may find it in odd that I asked this, but I did (and she was excited to answer!) I asked her if she had seen Saving Private Ryan. She said that she and her husband 'of course' had. I then asked her if the opening scene of the D-Day invasion was, according to her husband's recollection, totally overblown or pretty close to actuality. She said that throughout the whole opening of the movie her husband kept tugging on her arm and telling her, "that's what it was like, that's just what it was like!" She said that he had actually been driving his boat to shore and one soldier got shot and they really DID throw him overboard. (though she said that he laughed at the idea that guns were fired underwater as he was adamant that this would 'never work'. funny what you would notice after having been there.) Ittotally amazes me, and gives me great pause that these things were just not in the movies and that people really are able to thrive and survive through ordeals like that. Gives me alot of hope for life.