REFLECTIONS
THE RING
Teresita Bacani-Oropilla, MD
Her name was Apolonia, a self-made woman with a high school degree. She was trained by a nurse friend to assist the physician and facilitate the flow of patients in a very busy family / pediatric clinic in the rural Philippines, circa 1960. Being the oldest in her family, she helped her parents send her younger siblings to school. Already in her early thirties, she had no time to attend to amorous pursuits and realized she had turned into an old maid.
Undaunted, she befriended a younger man who was transporting passengers to their destinations on a rented tricycle. He also had put himself through high school, was industrious, and showed possibilities for success. Besides, he was good looking. It was not long after that when they purchased a ring.
It must have cost a lot for them to invest in this ring. It was not one of those that cast prisms of color when held against the light. It had just enough gold in it to appear yellowish, dotted with three small dark-colored smidgens of diamonds that must have been left over after the main jewel had been cut. Pitiful it may have looked to the snobbish or richer onlookers, but for them it was the hard-earned symbol of their commitment to each other, and they were wed.
In our own rich and bountiful USA, February is a month to celebrate love, culminating on the 14th designated as St. Valentine’ s Day.( The latter, legend says, was reputed to have given dowries to
three ladies so they could be married properly.) Cards, flowers, lavish bouquets, boxes of candies and gifts avowing love are exchanged. Dances and parties are arranged for budding friendships and known lovers to enjoy. Great excitement is engendered by tele-series or popular athletes at stadiums, who kneel before a beloved and offer an engagement ring.
The ring, being a circle, is supposed to promise unending love, beginning all over when it is supposed to end. Since it is visible, it also advertises to all, one’ s intent to make this a permanent relationship.
Thus indeed when this intent is finally sealed, life goes on, sustained by this promised love, despite the bumps and falls along the way. Many widows and widowers, even after the demise of a loved one, wear the rings of their departed spouses in a necklace, a reminder of a beloved figure who was once a linchpin of their past.
Apolonia still wears her ring as she goes about her chores on the farm where she and her husband raised their two sons. A simple cheap ring, now faded and worn thin, it glows with fidelity, sacrifice and love.
Can love really endure? Surely, if tended well. Happy Valentine’ s Day!
Dr. Oropilla is a retired psychiatrist.
6 LOUISVILLE MEDICINE