creative writing

When we were young, when we first became a family, I gave you a pretty silver ring--a bright and shiny Claddagh. Birds and cherry blossoms were in the air when I placed it on your finger, with all the promises that the giving of a ring entails. And you looked at me with love, and I held you tight.
“Never forget how much I love you.”
She smiled and said,
“I won’t.”
While autumn leaves fell, when we were a little older, you handed me the ring I gave you in our youth.
“It doesn’t fit me anymore. I’d like a better one. A bigger one…a fancier one. Everyone I know has a gold one.”
And so I went, off in search of a newer, fancier, golden claddagh.
The jeweler looked at me, sighed and said, “You never can keep them happy for long.”
And so I gave her the new, fancy golden ring. The silver ring of our youthful love went inside my keepsake box on the shelf.
When you gave me back that ring, that golden one, that fancy golden one, no longer new, but still given with the love and devotion that comes with the giving of rings, I asked:
“Why are you unhappy with this ring? I have given you my love, my devotion, my loyalty and trust? Everything that this ring represents has been yours, and more. What more do you want? What will make you happy?
And she said, “The ring doesn’t fit anymore. I can’t be yours anymore. I want to be free. I want to be free with him.”
And that’s when she walked out the door, with her boots crunching through the snow, and she climbed onto the back of a motorcycle, behind the man in the black leather coat, speeding off into the snowy road.

The silver ring still sits in my keepsake box. It looks small there. It, and all the promises that the giving of rings implies, is tarnished, neglected and ruined.
When my husband asks me why I look at this blackened ring so often, I tell him:
“I still miss my daughter.”