Hold out your hand.

 I was cleaning out some of my mother's things, as her illness progresses there are many things she no longer needs. Like her clothes for evenings out on special occasions such as a wedding or dinner party. Also her watches or jewelry, they make her become obsessed with playing or hiding them, only to lose the object within minutes. My mom was not one to wear much jewelry, she never had her ears pierced until her forties. Jewelry was for special occasions mostly and a little for work as well.

 My dad certainly never wore anything other than his wedding ring and a watch in the line of jewelry, sometimes cufflinks. He did have a farm watch, a church watch and a special occasion watch. I wanted to be like my dad so I never really had any interest in jewelry. It would not have been odd for me to wear something, many of my friends wore a small gold chain, some bought rings. French Canadian men love jewelry, they often had their ears pierced, two chains and two or three rings.

 I also felt I wanted to keep things natural, if I was supposed to have things sticking out of me, the universe would have given me horns. Yesterday I picked up a gold chain out of a box, that I think probably had a locket on it at one time. I put it on and I liked the look, it needed to be a little more masculine but I could see myself wearing a guy's chain, I may buy one. I did think for a time in my twenties about an ear ring but decided against it when some of my friends tried it and I didn't like the look. One piece of jewelry that I never wanted to buy was a ring, I have tried some nice gold ones on and they looked nice. The reason I wouldn't buy one is because I always wanted my first ring to be given to me by my boyfriend.

 I know it's not the usual reason one gay man gets excited when a second gay man gets down on his knees but that was always something I had hoped for. I wrote about this before but the feeling would be overwhelming to see the man I love have this goofy nervous grin, kneeling before me, open box in hand, asking me the question and when I say yes, I hear "hold out your hand". Like the feeling of defeat when I finally accept that my mom no longer needs her jewelry or clothes for an evening out, I also realize that the romantic proposal is probably never going to happen.