The Ring

On Saturday we gathered to celebrate and honour my father’s life. It’s been six months since he died. I moved through the hours with full hands and a full heart—preparing food, hugging strangers and relatives I hadn’t seen in years. I washed dishes, wiped counters, caught tears. I gave what I could: soft smiles, quiet presence, the steadiness of simply being there.

When the celebration was over, I climbed into my car and felt it—that familiar tug. A whisper from my knowing voice grazed my mind: Wait. You’ve forgotten something.

I took a deep breath and paused. A shadow of absence passed over me. I checked my purse, my coat, the seat beside me. The dogs were in the back seat, watching. Everything was there. I reassured myself before driving home that I hadn’t left anything behind.

And yet—I was wrong.

It wasn’t until I arrived home, an hour and a half later, that I noticed.

My right hand.My pointer finger.Bare.

The gold band from Hawai‘i—gone.

I had bought it for myself a few years ago—a gift of sorts. A thick 18-carat gold band, hand-carved with plumeria by a Hawaiian artist, purchased in Lahaina (which has since been destroyed by fire). I always wore that ring. It was a symbol of my love for Maui—one of my most treasured trinkets, the kind that catches sunlight and memories in equal measure.

Over the past thirty years, Maui has been my favourite place in the world. That gold ring carried so many memories—morning swims in warm water, plumeria blossoms tucked behind my ear, the scent of salt and sandalwood, the hush of twilight on the lanai. After the fire in Lahaina, it became even more precious. It wasn’t just a ring anymore—it was a relic. A symbol of love for a place that had shaped me. A quiet witness to beauty, and to the devastation of loss. Maui was the island I returned to after my son died in 1988, and again after my father’s passing. It has held me through heartbreak more than once. The ring reminded me of that—a piece of gold wrapped in memory, place, and survival.

I wore my special ring on the day of my father’s celebration of life because Maui has carried me through so many hard seasons. I needed to wear something that held meaning.

It must have slipped off somewhere in the blur of rinsing fruit, cutting pastries, shaking hands, hugging, scraping food, reaching into the garbage, drying my hands for the tenth time.

At first, when I realized it was gone, I felt a flicker of grief. Oh no. I lost something I valued. A weight in my chest—not because of its cost (which was substantial), but because of its meaning. It was a piece of something I loved.

But then, just as quickly, a shift.

It’s only a ring.

And my father is gone. The two are incomparable.

But maybe neither was truly gone—just beyond the reach of my hands.

Then another thought came, soft and certain:

Maybe it was him.

Maybe my dad was the one who slipped it off my hand. Maybe he was trying to tell me something, like: “It’s been six months, Mary Ann. Let go. It’s time to let go.”

Not of love—but of the holding. Of trying to keep everything exactly as it was. Of the sadness. Of the everyday missing. The thought of letting go—of not needing it anymore—felt scary. Because if I let go… will I forget? Or was my grieving what kept him close? Maybe I believed that holding on was how I kept him alive.

But there’s a lesson in this—one I’m only just beginning to understand.

Nothing is permanent. Not jewelry, not people, not animals, not flowers, not even the moments we think will last forever. And maybe that’s what makes them so precious. We’re meant to hold everything in life loosely—open-handed, open-hearted.

It’s okay to be sad for a while, to sit in the ache, to miss someone every single day. But eventually, we’re asked to loosen our grip—not on love, but on the weight of loss. Letting go doesn’t mean forgetting. It means making space for something new.

Some things stay in the soil. Some things return to the sky. And love, the truest kind, finds a way to rise with us.

While these thoughts played around in my mind, the sadness of losing my precious ring softened. My feelings shifted from grief to gratitude—to all the joy the ring had brought me. How I rubbed it and admired it each time I wore it. How it reminded me of a place so dear to me—of salt air and golden light. Of Lahaina. Of loss, and of hope.

Losing the ring that day invited me to hold onto all the beautiful memories I carry of my father: how he taught me to swim, how he loved watching me play sports when I was growing up. How he used to sit me on the handlebars of his ten-speed bicycle, and how all six of us would ride our bikes along the country roads on Fairfield Island—taking up the entire road, stopping to feed the Jersey cows along the way.

I saw that the love I had for my dad—and for the ring I treasured—was still mine. And still very much alive. I was going to be okay.

And then—just as I had begun to make peace with losing my ring—the phone rang.

It was my big brother. FaceTime.

He didn’t say much at first. He simply held up his hand to the camera—and there it was.

My gold ring.

He had spent hours in the dumpster, combing through giant bags of garbage from the event—quietly, methodically, with so much care. Sifting through tea bags, opening up paper towels, wiping coffee grounds from his hands. Taking apart pieces of lemon cake, uneaten strawberries, half-eaten egg salad sandwiches. Searching for something he knew mattered to me—something I thought was gone forever.

And he found it—embedded inside a tiny piece of Costco Almond Bundt Coffee Cake.

The chances were one in a million.

I cried. Not just for the ring, but for the love in that gesture. For the way he hoped and searched tirelessly, without being asked. For the way he held it up with a huge smile on his face—like a small miracle, like he’d just won the lottery. For the way I could see in his face all the things he had never said: how much he knew I was hurting, and how this was the best thing he could do to take away some of the pain. To help me feel joy again.

In that moment, it felt like something had been returned—not just the gold, but a sense of being held in this world. A sense of being deeply, fiercely loved.

And maybe—just maybe—it was my father’s way of saying:

See how much you are loved. Your family loves you. Even when I’m not here—your brother would move mountains for you.

Sometimes, love asks us to let go.

And sometimes, when we do, it surprises us—by coming back and showing up differently.

Some things—like a gold ring on a grieving hand, a father’s presence, and even a brother’s love—find their way home.

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