It's What You DON'T See ...

See anything? That is, other than the wrinkles on the black cloth? If you do, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you--because THERE IS NOTHING THERE!!! I find it mighty strange that for someone who grew up without jewelry (think: a mix of holiness with "back to nature" hippiness), someone who did not get her ears pierced till the ripe old age of thirty-one, jewelry sure has played a big role in my life. Like this picture with NOTHING on it. What I would have liked to see there is the ring I was hoping to pass down to a fourth generation. I would have been the third. But (sigh!) I never got it. It happened like this …

Back in the old days when I was growing up, Grandma had a sister-in-law who had made a rather unfortunate choice in marriage--her husband emigrated to Cuba and, if what my mother told me is true, worked with the main guy there in the now infamous uprising. As Cuba became communist, Grandma's sister-in-law was not allowed to come home to the states except once every so many years. She bore two children over there, a boy and a girl. On the trips she was allowed to make to her home country, Auntie Piggy was not allowed to bring her children. It was my understanding that they were kept as a kind of security, ensuring that my great-aunt wouldn't go AWAL and would high-tail it back to Cuba.

That was my Auntie Piggy, so named by the childish me because of her generosity. Before she got married and carried off to another country, every time I saw her she would give me coins for my piggy bank, hence the moniker. Her real name was Carolina.

On every trip, she would load up on things--and money--to take back with her. The stuff we take for granted stateside was, Auntie Piggy said, hard to come by in Cuba. In fact, rations were such that sometimes her boy, who suffered from Down's Syndrome, would sometimes resort to going house to house in their neighborhood in the hope of wheedling a morsel to eat from some kind-hearted person. Another of Auntie Piggy's sisters here in the states found a way to send her gum in letters. This sister explained to us once that if she took the package of gum apart and flattened the sticks between the papers of the letter, the sticks would make it to the receiver just fine, making it past any screening of the mail.

Well, on one of Auntie Piggy's trips to the states, she hit Grandma up for money. As luck would have it, Grandma didn't have any--but she did have her wedding ring. Grandma took it off and gave it to Auntie Piggy! As a teenager, when I found out this bit of history, I had a fit. Grandma had forgone jewelry after giving her life to Jesus, having received Him through the ministrations of a holiness movement and, as a matter of course, embracing their precepts with regard to jewelry. But she had kept her wedding ring, the only relic left from her kind, loving husband who had died when their last baby was three years old. How could Grandma have given it away? My heart was broken …

Then, a few years later, a miracle happened. Grandma voiced to me a desire for a ring, one with the birthstones of her three children. I was ecstatic! Grandma, who eschewed jewelry and rarely asked for anything, actually wanted a lovely ring! My husband wasn't so enthusiastic--he wanted me to get something closer to a cracker jacks box ring (think Scrooge)--but with God's help (we were, after all, in the ministry and had to pray our extras in) I was able to get Grandma the ring of her dreams!

"Now, Neenee," she told me, "when I die, don't you leave it in the coffin with me. It won't do anyone any good there. I want you to take it and wear it."

I nodded and changed the subject--I didn't want to think of Grandma dying. But, strangely enough, even though she lived past ninety-one, there came a day when she actually did die. I followed her instructions and took her beloved ring off her finger. But I disobeyed in one critical aspect. Grandma had said for ME to wear it--but I gave it to my mother to wear instead. When she passed on to her reward, then I would take the ring, with every intention of later passing it on to my own granddaughter. How cool would that be? A ring passed down through four generations!

It was a nice thought, but it was not to be.

Yes, Mom loved the ring. But circumstances were such that she eventually had to move into a facility that offered assisted living (think, 6 hip surgeries, blind in one eye, and a useless left arm [long story]). One sad day, when Mom lost her cognitive faculties, I looked for her ring. Since she wouldn't be wearing it anymore, it would be safer with me than just laying around. But I was too late. It was gone.

While Mom still had her faculties, there had been a day when she had actually thrown away her dentures--she had wrapped them in a tissue, set them in a glass, and a worker unwittingly disposed of them when she threw the trash out when cleaning the room. Mom realized her dentures were gone and the poor worker who threw them out went into overdrive panic, happily finding them in the outside trash bin. The ring was not so lucky. I am sure it suffered the same fate as the dentures--but without Mom's awareness to look for it, the ring was thrown away and never recovered.

And that, dear Reader, is why the black cloth in the picture is empty. Sans ring.

But … that is not the end of the story! The end of the story is …

Yes, there is a sense of loss about my ring dream coming to a screeching halt, but slowly but surely God is changing the angst of loss into something else. A sense that this loss is not without purpose: it serves to remind me to treasure those riches that are true and eternal. The ring would never, ever, under no circumstances, no matter how treasured, have made it to Heaven. But Grandma's legacy? Her sacrificial and unselfish serving as missionary to the people of the village God called her to? A ministry that lasted well over thirty years? That spiritual jewel IS going to make in to the other side! I revel in the fact that we have not lost the best legacy of all, the one that will be a treasure for eternity. We might not see it now in the physical realm, but it is very real, and the very best legacy of all.

"But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: Matthew 6:20.