I don't have an engagement ring, and I'm not engaged, but I have spent a lot of hours in the last few months hand in hand with my Almost Fiance (AF) looking into jewelers cases and trying things on.
Professionally, I work for a humanitarian organization that addresses conflict in, among other places, Africa. Academically I could have written a thesis on the evils of the diamond industry. I went into the "lets look at rings!" stage fully committed to a sapphire (Emily even approves! "There is also sentiment for a sapphire's "depth of true blue.") Then I found myself in front of a diamond ring for the first time and wavered...
There are a million reasons not to wear a diamond. The high cost of new diamonds keeps the trade in conflict diamonds active, even if your diamond is from Canada or Kimberly processed, diamond mining can be held responsible for at least one war (Boer) and one horrific domestic policy (apartheid) and that's before you get to the modern incarnation of mutilation and smuggling, the diamond industry was, until quite lately, a cartel and so wearing a diamond had the moral equivalency of wearing cocaine, diamond mining is hardly an environmentally ethical practice (waste disposal, ground water contamination...)I can continue. I had continued. I still thought the ring was beautiful, but I never quite shook the "you know better" feeling.
Until this weekend.
The diamond is from some time between 1825 and 1920 (old European cut). The ring is platinum. I'm not on any sort of high horse here-- I realize that this diamond may have had as much to do with conflict as any one I bought new today--- but the ring, with all its intricate platinum filigree and art-deco accent settings had one thing no other ring we looked at had:
A love story of its own.
IF that's the ring I wear for the rest of forever (and I have no way of knowing for sure, though a recent cleaning of someone's upper dresser drawer strongly suggests it is...) I will be the second person to have worn it. I will be its second story. I will be the second person to have promised to love, honor, and cherish the giver. I will be the second person to have put it on and thought "THIS is it" I will be the second chapter in the rings story.
And I like that.
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