#literarynarrative

                                               Two Gold Rings

When you are five years old you don’t really understand the concept of what death was or what happens. All I know is that on August 8, 2002, I was at the beach and was dressed to go out when my mom and my aunt walked into the kitchen with tears rolling down their faces. My dad sent me to my room where I angrily waited to go down to the beach when a few minutes later my dad walked in and told me that there had been an accident and that I needed to get dressed because we were going home. After that moment the day was pretty much a blur except when I got to this big old musty building where my entire family was waiting and crying when a man came out and they told my dad and mom to go inside with my grandparents and to leave us outside.  A few minutes later I remember everyone coming back crying even harder than they were before they left. I wanted to know what was going on but no one would tell me. It wasn’t till a few hours later that my parents had told me that my Uncle Carlos, who I had just seen a few days before, had died in a motorcycle accident.

A few years after my uncle had passed away, my grandmother started wearing this necklace. It was two gold rings on a gold chain one just big enough for the smaller one to fit inside the bigger one. It was then that I realized that those rings were my aunt and uncles wedding bands. Those two gold bands that once were on my aunt and uncle’s hands were now on a chain around her neck where they were supposed to stay until the day that she died. I didn’t know it then but those rings were going to be eventually passed down to me.

When I reached the age of fifteen I learned two very important things.  These two things were that when my grandmother passed away I would be given those rings since I was the closest to my Aunt and Uncle. When I heard that I immediately started to cry because at the same time I also learned that my uncle was not who I thought he was. I learned that the happy person that would always bring us toys and would make us laugh was very dark and sad person. The day I found out that I was going to be passed down those two gold rings on the gold chain, I also found out that my uncle was very depressed when my aunt died from breast cancer and to help numb the gut wrenching pain that he felt from her death he decided to turn to drugs, and that when he died he was under the influence of several drugs. It was a mix of drugs, poor decision-making, and mechanical failure with his bike that day that caused him to die.

Ever since the day that I found out that my uncle was a on drugs when he died I swore to myself again that I would never associate myself with it or ever put myself in a situation where I was around it. As of today, I have continued to keep that promise and will continue to keep that promise until the day that I die. As I went through high school I continued to find out more information about what my uncle was really like, by hearing all the stories that my mom would talk about from her childhood up and till before my aunt died.

Although my uncle was not the person he once was when he died I still would have been proud to wear those two gold rings around my neck, because in my eyes he will always be that person that when we were having a bad day would run out to Toys R Us and would bring a toy to our house. He was the person that on Easter Sunday, after dying our eggs he would break one open and would put ketchup on it and while I made faces he would say “Sweet Pea, don’t judge it till you try it”. He was the person that I would always hug first when I went to family events, and even today I am pretty sure I still would.

When my little sister turned 15 my grandmother gave her a little box that contained something very special. It was a rose gold necklace with a rose on the pendant. My uncle gave it to my grandma just two weeks before he died, and she gave it to my little sister on her fifteenth birthday. None of us were expecting it, it was something that when my little sister opened it and my mom saw it and my grandmother, told us what it was that caused everyone in the room to go completely silent and start to tear up a little bit. That same year but just a month later, my older sister graduated from high school, and when she got to the present my grandparents were giving her, my mom told us all to look at my older sister because we would want to see this. We all turned around and stared at my older sister who was quite freaked out at this point and that is when my grandma gripped my grandpa’s hand and waited to see the reaction of my older sister. When she opened the box my older sister started to cry, in the middle of the restaurant, she did not say anything she just got up and hugged my grandparents who were sitting quietly and were tearing up. The reason they were crying is because they had just given my older sister a necklace that was given to my uncle when he graduated from high school.

Then, the unthinkable happened, when I graduated from high school it was a day full of happiness and emotions. I had finally graduated high school and I was feeling on top of this world. Following pictures after the ceremony we drove downtown to the place where we would have a celebratory dinner with my parents, my two sisters, my uncle, and of course my grandparents. After ordering our food, it was time to open my presents. I started with the presents from my parents, then my sisters, then my uncle, and then finally with my grandparents present to me. Nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to see. Once again my mom called everyone’s attention and told them to watch. I slowly opened the box kinda nervous about what I was about to see. Once more my grandmother gripped my grandpa’s hand, and I noticed that my mom was already crying and when I finally got the box open, I looked down and saw something I thought I wouldn’t see for a really long time. In that tiny box were two gold rings on a gold chain that used to hang around my grandmothers neck.