MY GARNET RING

I was born in January. My birthstone is the deep red garnet. I wasn't always happy with this stone. As a youth, I felt it was too old-fashioned. After all, Victorian ladies wore this stone and I didn't want to look anything like these large-breasted women adored with jewelry loaded with this red stone.

I was the eldest of five children in a middle-class family where there was no extra money for jewelry, even if I had wanted to wear that stone. So,as a teenager,I was surprised with the gift of a garnet ring set in gold--a gift from my mother on a day that wasn't my birthday or Christmas. I wore it with pride until the day I struck it with the drum sticks of my snare drum during a wild drum session, and chipped out a chunk of the stone.

I was heartsick but continued to wear it for years in spite of the chip. Somewhere along the way of adulthood, the stone fell out of the setting and the ring was no more. But I was in for a huge surprise when mama died. In her possessions, I found an old diary, one from her teenage years. She had received the ring as a gift on her sixteenth birthday from a boyfriend--and it wasn't my daddy.

Prompt: "When you stumble, make it part of the dance." (Author Unknown)