the edwardian diamond

PLEASE NOTE: TW for mentions of suicide, domestic abuse, abusive relationships

I looked at it again. It was all dainty and pretty, complete with a big fat diamond in the middle. But you could tell it was old, much older than me. It was worn, scratched and missing one of the tiny little diamonds that surround the giant fella in the middle.

I must admit I was kind of moved when my mother gave me her ring. I didn’t expect it, since I never felt like she had ever given my relationship to Camilla her blessing. Not that I asked for it or that it was even a thing that was done in my family, it was more of an informal disdain that I felt, whenever she was around us. So I was surprised she would pass on her family heirloom to me to give to Camilla. I thanked her and tried to show her that I appreciated this gesture for what it was: acceptance. Finally.

And at first I did like the idea! Camilla wearing that ring, like my mother once did and her mother before her and her mother before that and finally, her mother in law (my great-great grandmother!) before that. Like a rite of passage, a way of saying that our relationship was now a part of the family history, as proper and real as Mum and Dads. 

Confession time: it made me tear up a bit. 

But now, looking at it, I am not so sure anymore. 

It feels like a prop that has been a part of so many different plays. 

There is the story of my great-great grandparents Elizabeth and William. He got the ring after he saw it in a shop window and was convinced that it would help him find a wife. Yes, you heard that right: Good ol’ Will didn’t even have a girl yet, but the pound was strong and he was part of the newly strengthened middle class who couldn’t get enough of all kinds of expensive novelties, so he figured: Why not?

He met Elizabeth at church and after two long and apparently meaningful walks and one formal supper with her family, he gave her the ring and courtship turned into engagement and finally - in 1911 - into marriage. 

They had a babyboy - Richard - and everything seemed to be as perfect as a picture until 1916, when a young William was conscripted to the military service. 

He was one of the lucky ones in that he got to return to his family. But the William who returned to his family was a changed man. He had become an angry man. 

My great-grandmother Mary met Richard in 1929 and he reminded her a lot of the father she herself had grown up with. He too had an anger brewing inside him at all times. In the beginning, it was different. He was witty and charming and after a bit of time, he put his mothers ring on her finger. 

And it all changed. 

Mary was careful around him, spending most of her energy towards trying not to upset him.

She became really good at controlling most of the parameters that usually set him off: the mood she gave off, her tone of voice, her ‘clumsy’ movements, her facial expressions whenever he paid especially close attention to her reaction when he was ranting about someone who was probably an idiot or did him wrong or something similar along those lines.

She kept the house clean, cooked his favorite supper and laughed at every attempt of a joke he made to keep him in a good mood. When he was in a good mood, he would tell her that she was a saint for putting up with him and she would laugh and shrug it off. They would put on some music, Richard would read his books and they would sit together in peace. After they had their daughter Margaret, it became increasingly hard to keep him in a good mood. With a newborn, Mary had little energy left and living a life led by pleasing the unhappy man became unsustainable for her. So it got worse. What was once a life under pressure to be exactly what Richard needed her to be at every moment became a life in fear. Because he needed no more reason to hate her. He stopped trying to find ways to make his bullying seem like she brought it on to herself and openly terrorized her day in, day out. 

When Britain joined the war efforts, Mary was ashamed to feel excitement at the idea of her husband having to join the Military Service and leave her. But Richard was exempted from service for health reasons (officially) and because he knew the doctor who examined him well (most likely the only reason). His health issues didn’t stop him from living a long life, he died in 2002, almost 14 years after Mary had passed on from stress-induced cardiomyopathy. 

When my grandmother Margaret was sixteen, World War II had just ended and the world was ecstatic. It was during this time that she met my grandfather Albert. Albert was a fifteen year old boy who was completely enamored with my grandmother from the very first time she set foot in front of him. Margaret was fun: She was loud (and sometimes rude), she never waited around to be asked to dance, she would just dare to ask the boys if they wanted to share a number with her, she seemed to have no curfew, which was odd for a young woman who lived with her parents, she was out and about, sometimes long into the night, she smoked, she was everything but a ‘proper english rose’. 

And she liked Albert back. 

Albert was dressed in hand-me-downs and made very little money working at the docks, so my angel great-grandmother Mary gave him her engagement ring to ask Margaret for her hand in marriage.

They got married at 17 and she moved in with him and his family.

Unfortunately, Margaret was hard to please. Albert tried very hard to be a good husband but there was very little room for error. Whenever he wanted to go out by himself, Margaret would be furious, accusing him of not loving her anymore. She would tell him, if he was leaving her, he needn’t come back and she would cry so hard that it broke Alberts’ heart every time. 

At some point, he stopped going out by himself. 

He looked for other ways to spend his free time and started redoing his parents chicken coop. He had bought little square tiles and painted them with the chickens names to decorate the floors with. Margaret looked at his new hobby with disdain. She hated how many hours he spent in the backyard by himself rather than spending time with her. So one day, she came outside and accused him of being a selfish man who would rather be with the chickens than his wife. When Albert got angry about that, Margaret proceeded to smash the tiles he had bought with a nearby hammer. Albert left her standing in the coop, surrounded by pieces of handpainted, baby-blue tile. 

He stopped the remodel of the chicken coup after that. 

And after countless discussions about this thing he did wrong or that mistake he so stupidly made, he stopped doing a lot of things altogether.

They had a little girl, my mother Linda and when Linda was 22, she introduced her parents to my father Andrew.

Linda and Andrew met at university through mutual friends and immediately hit it off. She liked that he was funny and cared about his family and he liked that she seemed like an independent, strong-willed woman. They dated for a while but it became quite serious pretty quickly and Andrew got the ring from my grandmother Margaret, who gave it to him like it possessed some kind of magic and told him it had “sealed the deal” for generations. 

She said yes. 

The deal was sealed. 

Linda loved Andrew. Except when she didn’t. Except when he was out celebrating until late in the morning with his friends from uni. Except when he made plans for himself in the future that were not centered around them as a couple. Except when he spoke to other women that she felt threatened by (which was every single one of them). 

Except when he wanted or needed or demanded something, that made her feel too far away from him. Then she didn’t love him. She would have a breakdown and threaten to kill herself if he ever left her. He didn’t, but a marriage, a house and a kid later, he became a lot less funny than when they first met. 

I look at this old ring in my hand. 

I can be overwhelmed with having to be alone, but I try not to show Camilla, so she doesn’t feel pressured to always be around me.

I get terribly jealous, but I try to keep it to myself, so she isn’t limited by it. 

When I get overwhelmed by my anxiety about our relationship, I want to regain control by making her feel smaller than me, but instead I take a deep breath and wait for my personal waves to crash.

A few days later, I have the ring deconstructed. I decide that the diamond will be part of a necklace that I give to Camilla when I propose.

And I hope Camilla and I are lucky enough to have a child of our own and start an heirloom tradition with the necklace.

Until someone down the line gets sick of that too.