Happy Birthday, Erin (multi-page)

13. This was Erin’s engagement ring, custom made for her. I had known exactly what she wanted because one time, just spontaneously and for fun, we decided to go to a jewelry store and pretend like we were engaged and shopping for a ring. At this point we were living together but hadn’t really discussed marriage very much, but I’d always maintained that I didn’t really believe in marriage. This was really just for fun and we weren’t serious about it, but you can bet that I was paying very close attention to everything she was saying and I found out that day exactly what she would like her ring to look like. Leading up to our 5th anniversary, I had decided that I was going to propose and I went to a jewelry designer to have this ring custom designed. On the night of our 5th anniversary, we went for “the drive,” which was this cool scenic route through Palos Verdes, up and down the mountains through these winding mountain-road switchbacks, followed by a drive along the coast back around the other side of the hill. On the way back I said something about needing to go to the store and pulled into the Torrance Crossroads, this shopping center where I’d first asked her to be my girlfriend exactly 5 years before then… I’m pretty sure she knew exactly what was happening. I parked in front of the Pick Up Stix, this Asian fast food place where we’d been that night years ago (so romantic, I know!). We went for a little walk, and it was cold so she was wearing my jacket. When we got to the exact spot on the sidewalk where I’d asked her to be my girlfriend, I got down on my knee and realized that the ring was in the pocket of my jacket, which she had on. I grabbed one of her hands with mine and my other other hand went into the pocket to pull out the ring box. I was shaking, not because of the cold, but because I was so nervous. It’s crazy, I was pretty sure of what she would say because we’d talked about it before, but I was still so nervous. When she saw the ring she started crying. I told her that I loved her more than anything and that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. She said yes and we kissed and cried and held each other in that spot where it had all began 5 years before. She loved the ring, of course, because it was exactly what she’d told me years before that she wanted, white gold with 3 pear-cut diamonds arranged exactly how she’d described. When we got married a year later, she didn’t want a wedding band, just wanted to always wear the ring that she felt was so perfect. After she died, I put the ring on her butterfly necklace and wore it like that for a long time. But then one day I was vacuuming and saw a bright little spot on the carpet just before I went over it with the vacuum. I looked and there was the center diamond from her ring, which had apparently fallen out without me noticing. I freaked out, ending up curled up on the floor in a ball, crying. I got the ring fixed and since then I’ve kept it safe in this box.