Loose Diamond Engagement Article:
Dennis and Susan

  I guess there is some truth to the "ignorance is bliss" thing. If we had known then what we know now we may never have taken the chance. Of course, we didn’t know we were taking a chance—we were just doing whatever seemed fun at the time. At seventeen years old we were madly in love but didn’t have a clue about reality, engagements, loose diamonds, or marriage.

  We didn’t know that the engagement period was a time of transition from the single world to the married world—a time for taking care of business things in preparation for entering into a partnership, a time for making plans and setting goals that take the other person into consideration, and a time for realigning the other relationships in your life in preparation for cleaving only to one. Hey, we just thought it would sound cool and grown-up to our friends. Oh yeah, I guess we should buy a ring or something.

  Driving around in a baby-blue Volkswagen beetle, dressed in bellbottoms and tank tops, we pulled into the first diamond jewelry store we saw. He probably had fifty bucks in his pocket for a down payment on a diamond engagement ring. The price limit was $250.00. That quarter-carat diamond ring was the fanciest thing we had ever seen. The lady behind the counter said she could tell I was excited by the way my eyes were shining. I wonder if my eyes have ever shined since with such innocence and abandon. Sadly, I think the shine has been clouded with the mere reality of life. We left the sparkly diamond engagement ring to be sized and would pick it up the following weekend.

  We had planned to accompany his parents on a camping trip the next weekend along with a few of our friends. Several cars in a caravan, we all pulled into the parking lot of the diamond jewelry store long enough to pick up the ring. I put it on right there in the store; we hopped back in the car, and drove off to the Great Smokey Mountains for the weekend. Well, you can’t argue with our thinking—it was fun!!

  And I guess my eyes have shinned many times during the last thirty-three years. I think life wasn’t so hard because there was a hint of the gleam when our three babies were born and when they all married, and when our four grandchildren were born. Yes, there were hard times—you just have to make sure your eyes shine with a different kind of light during those times. The shine is not of innocence and abandon but of determination, faith, and patience. That bellbottomed, tank-topped young couple knew nothing of those things standing in that loose diamond jewelry store—but they were inside them all along.