Nice thought back on Tiff

I was thinking about an incident in the past that really meant a lot to me. I thought I'd write it down so that memory won't be lost to me in the future.

Tiff and I were in her car and she was driving down the street one night. Tiff was telling me something about a ring that I had bought her a few years previously. As she did this, she took off the ring and had it in her right hand.

I don't recall if we hit a dip or if she just had a moment of clumsiness, but she dropped the ring. It fell into the well around the emergency break.

She pulled over and we looked in the car. We looked under the seats, and on the sides of the seats. No ring.

She started to become very anxious as we theorized that perhaps it fell into the breakwell and out of the car. We walked back and looked for the ring. It was very dark and we didn't find anything.

As we looked she became more and more anxious. When it became apparent that we weren't going to find the ring, she freaked out. She started bawling hysterically. I felt awful for her. I tried to comfort her. i told her it was only a ring---that I'd buy her another, but she was inconsolable. A different ring was not her ring; Not the one I gave her.

After about 30 minutes she was no happier, but had run out of energy. I told her not to worry about it and to go get some sleep. We called it an early night.

The next moring I went out to the area and I looked around for 2 hours for that stupid ring. I didn't find it.

I came home and was getting ready to call Tiff when she called me. She found the ring!

She triuphantly explained that she had pulled out a screw driver and DISASSEMBLED the entire assembly surrounding her parking break and found the ring! She sounded so proud of herself, just beaming through the phone. As we spoke she was in the process of reassembling the car.

I was shocked. Tiff knew NOTHING about cars. She didn't have a manual. And she LOVED her Saturn and was immensely proud of it as it was the first new car she ever bought. Every little trouble went back to the dealership to be looked at.

I couldn't believe she pointed a screwdriver at it, let alone removed parts of the car.

It was so overwhelmingly emotional to me. I would say it was flattering but it was so much more than that. I couldn't believe that something little I gave to someone could have that much meaning to them. I felt so treasured. It was like she told me how deeply she loved me without saying a word.

At that moment I thought we would be together until the day we died.


I don't know how we got from there to not having spoken or seen each other for the last 3 months. How things got so totally broken. Maybe I didn't try hard enough. Maybe I tried too hard. Maybe we just weren't the right age for each other. Maybe we just weren't right for each other. I don't think anyone can REALLY tell you how or why things end. They just do sometimes.

I hope that she will always treasure the ring as a gift from someone who loved her deeply, but I know in my heart it has probably already been put away in a box somewhere never to see the light of day again. And I guess that's OK. It's just how things go.