that shiny little ring

“She smiled and said with an ecstatic air: "It shines like a little diamond",

"What does?"

"This moment. It is round, it hangs in empty space like a little diamond....” 

Almost seven years ago, this one man sat across his cousin to choose that stone, still in its raw form to decide how to design the diamond that he would set in a white gold band to place on the finger of the girl he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. Almost seven years ago, he carried the box a million miles away to step under a mango tree and get down on one knee on New Years Eve to ask her to marry him.

That stone. That diamond.

When I would look at it, I would go back in time and remember how body escaped in happy sobs, how the tears ran down my face when I realised what was happening in that one moment under the mango tree. The sparkle in the stone would bring back the sparkle in our eyes when I said yes. The shine would bring back our auras on those special days during our engagement, when we sat preparing for the day that would bind our lives together. I always looked at it. Even after seven years. I thought I'd be looking at it forever.

But it wasn't just a stone. Nor was it just a diamond.

It meant that he picked me to be the one he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. It meant that he chose me. And it held our stories in its little kaleidoscope. So please excuse me for being materialistic as I grieve the loss of my stone as in this one instance, this particular material possession meant the world to me. As much as I know there are thousands of diamonds out there, I know that there was only one that was mine, the only one that he chose to put on my finger that one surreal evening. As much as a stone is replaceable, this one isn't and neither are the stories that were engraved into it.

The empty setting on my engagement ring doesn't look right. The hollow spot where that stone sat stares back at me. The metal looks lacklustre without its shine. It looks incomplete. My finger feels incomplete.

And I'm absolutely gutted.