For the second time in two months a part of me was missing, and it was difficult to function.

The first time was when I woke up one morning and my watch showed four o’clock, but the sun was shining. For a split second I thought I’d been asleep 14 hours then checked the clock on the stove, and found my watch was wrong.

It was my usual wakeup time: 9:30 a.m.

I tapped my watch to make it get the right time.

No luck. Battery died so it was four o-clock all day and night until the next afternoon when it came by to life thanks to an Enid jewelry store repair gal.

Ah-h-h. Soon I was no longer broken.

My world was right again.

Then printed instructions before a surgical procedure last month created another loss. It required removal of all jewelry which was easier said than done when it came to my rings.

It was no trouble getting off my mother’s wedding ring, and another band my late husband bought for me in New Orleans after a trip to Pat O’Brien’s. Then a ring he’d had made from his grandmother’s jewelry slid off without a hitch. Ditto on my rose ring that I wore as an engagement ring on what I call my arthritic ring finger.

When it came to my wedding band I couldn’t get it over my knuckle.

Lotion didn’t help the first time, and my knuckle became red and swollen.

I started to panic, then decided to wait and try again.

A second try with hand cream didn’t work, and I thought about Google, but waited longer.

Soon it was bedtime before the morning surgery, and the wedding band finally came off.

The next morning my thumbs and little fingers tried to straighten the rose and grandmother rings that than usually turn, but weren’t there.

The surgery went fine, and I couldn’t wait to get home and put on my watch and rings so I’d feel like me again.

Everything went on without a hitch except my wedding band.

I still can’t get it on, and am lost without it.

That’s the same way I feel being without him.

At least I have the rose ring, and the story that goes with it.

He was driving and asked me to open up a Mound candy bar for him.

I did, and out dropped the rose engagement ring.

“I never promised you a rose garden,” was always what we said before, and after marriage. Those words were our mantra as we dealt with sometimes bumpy roads in life, with children, and when we put the newspaper to bed at two in the morning.

Part of me is still missing without my ring. Without my Bill. But I still have wonderful memories of 1971 that make me smile. They’re also easier to remember than what I had for lunch yesterday.