Ch. 6 The ring
Joshua came home with such a mortified look on his face that I thought someone died. But he works at the hair saloon, not a hospital, so I thought it wouldn't be that bad—not until he told me he lost his wedding band.
I admit I was upset, I still do. But when I thought about what happened to my parents many years ago, I gave him a big hug and forgave him.
The trouble of being a surgeon (and a hair stylist) is that you often need to take your ring off. My dad, as some of you already realized, was a careful man. My mom, on the other hand, never quite fully caught up with him in this regard.
It was a very plain wedding ring, in part because they married on impulse, in part because Dad always claimed that Mom would lose it quickly anyway, so why bother to get a nice one?
When Dad actually lost his ring after a surgery, he was so ashamed that he almost didn't go home that night. He went to Joe's, a place he almost never visited, except when he went on a double-date with Mom when Mer first started dating the vet (whom I always thought of as a martyr). Mom said when McDreamy called her from Joe's, she thought Dad was shot again.
What would a woman normally do when her husband lose his wedding ring? If you thought my mom was like any average woman, you're quite wrong.
"Are you sure you didn't accidentally leave it in the patient's body?" was the first question she asked. Think like a surgeon—that's what Dad taught her, and she was obviously more concerned about malpractice lawsuits than that tiny piece of gold.
Guess what, that was the end of the ring-wearing practice for the Burkes.
The first time I learned about weddings at kindergarten, I asked my parents why they never wore a ring. "Which woman wouldn't want a ring, a symbol that you're taken and cherished? But it's just a symbol. Our love is real and we don't need a symbol to remind us that."
Of course, Mom never made it explicit how liberating it was not having to worry about slipping the ring on and off everyday. She was, after all, a somewhat careless woman.