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Parenting with Connie: A diamond in the rough
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Anonymous user Tue Jul 11, 2006 12:27:23 PDT
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0 responses 0 comments This past January, after all the Christmas decorations had been put in storage and the house was nearly squared away, I looked down at my hands. To my horror, I had gouged the diamond in my wedding band.
I could not bear to look at it. Angst crept in because I thought about scheduling it on the homeowner’s insurance last summer, but in my mind I knew I wouldn’t lose my wedding ring. So I didn’t follow through. I never imagined that a diamond could be damaged like that.
Frantic, I took it to a local jeweler. He told me that he couldn’t fathom how my finger was not also damaged. So I put my 20th anniversary diamond in my wedding set and figured that the diamond was just gone. Then I called my jeweler in Anchorage and he chuckled that I wasn’t the first person not to insure their wedding ring. That scenario would have been too easy. 
He told me to send the gouged diamond to him because it could possibly be recut into another shape and maybe some of the value could be salvaged.  
Value, I thought to myself. I married my husband at 17 with a borrowed wedding band and not a single diamond. It was my grandmother’s band engraved with our names and the date. Twenty-six years of marriage, that’s value.  
This is my anniversary month. I try not to reveal this to my students, but I met my husband at 15, he took me out for a steak dinner at 16, and I married him when I was 17.  At least that is the story I told the lady at the meat counter. I was trying to explain why I couldn’t stomach ground beef. I grew up on moose meat. It is a very lean meat; they have to add suet for fat/flavor. 
I never knew the words to the little piggy nursery rhyme included roast beef; my little piggies grew up eating bread and butter. My husband and I argued about this detail for years. So you can see we came from two completely different backgrounds. (What do you mean you and your brother don’t share bathwater?)   
I told her that when we got married, I couldn’t cook for two. I could only cook for 11 people. Ten pounds of potatoes were used for every dinner, whether it be soup or hash. One pound of ground moose could feed 11 people. Why not? They fed thousands in the Bible with a few fish and 12 loaves of bread.
Our family would divide two chickens for 11 people. His family divided two chickens for the four of them. So when he came over for dinner (for 12) and stabbed a couple of pieces of chicken before the plate got around the table, I would elbow him. It took my brother, Sam, many years to forgive him. (All he got were chicken wings.)
When we made chocolate chip cookies, one half of a bag of chocolate chips was added for a double batch of cookie dough. Of course whoever made the cookies got to gobble a few of them before they were added to the batter. We would fight over the cookies that had the most chocolate chips in them. My future husband got wise and started bringing chocolate chips and demanding that the whole package be used for a single batch. He was winning over my younger brothers and sisters. I was falling in love. 
We were married young. I think about our anniversary and could tell you where we have spent every one of them. It used to be the only day of the year that we could afford to go out to dinner. Our first five years of marriage consisted of four years of college, three kids and two moves, including a move from Fairbanks, Ala., to Bakersfield, Calif. There were times when we were so poor we couldn’t pay attention. 
Needless to say, our marriage has been rocky at times. No pun intended. When I looked at the gouged diamond, I was reminded of those. Not a chink in my armor, but perhaps a flaw; a moment I wasn’t proud of. A woman cherishes her wedding ring because of the promises, the lifetime commitment, and the memories.
Last week, I finally took the diamond in to be recut. I was beginning to see the diamond in a little different light. A diamond didn’t start out smooth and polished, it was carbon crystal. Add time, heat and pressure before it is cut and shaped into something beautiful. 
 Same thing about being a wife. Just because I put a wedding ring on didn’t make me a wife, just like giving birth didn’t make me a parent. I’ve spent 26 years learning to be a wife and mother. We are always changing and transforming our relationships to be the best we can be.
I’m not sure what shape my diamond will take, but like us, its value is priceless.

E-mail Connie at:
cmoustakis@bak.rr.com.

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