“My father’s wedding ring reappears fifteen years after his death”

2023-12-29 19:00:12
THIBAULT LAGET-RO

“My father died in January 1982. It happened very quickly. On Tuesday noon, he was with us and everything was fine. On Saturday, he was buried. He had what was called “cerebral congestion” at the time, which would be called a stroke today. I was 13, and it felt like he had disappeared overnight. He had been taken away. Because of my young age, my mother did not want me to attend the firing. For me, there was nothing tangible, and I dreamed for a long time that he was coming back.

January 12, 1982 was a Tuesday. It was very cold. I took evening English classes after college, because my level wasn’t great. When I left, I went to join my mother in her hair salon, and we returned home. When we arrived, we immediately saw that something unusual was happening. All the lights were off, even though it was dark. The dog was prostrate at the entrance. We walked through the door. We didn’t see Dad right away. We ended up finding him unconscious in the toilets. My mother called the fire department and went with them to the hospital, without me. I was left alone at home with the dog. In the evening there was a power outage. I remember lighting every candle I could find.

I lived alone with my parents: I had older half-brothers and sisters from my father’s previous marriage, but they were much older, and I was raised as an only child, in our house in Soissons. [Aisne]which Dad bought in the 1950s.

After the death, I found myself alone with my mother. In the days following the funeral, she said to me: “Hey, it’s weird, we didn’t find your father’s wedding ring.” Mom tried to remember if he had been buried with it, but it seemed not. We searched everywhere in the house, in the jewelry hiding places, in the attic: nothing. We gave up. Life went on, and we forgot this story.

“As if my father appeared on this symbolic day”

Fifteen years later, in 1997, mother fell ill. Lung cancer. It’s long and difficult. His body is swelling from the treatments, and at the hospital the nurses ask me if I want his wedding ring back. I take it and keep it carefully. Mom died in October. The inheritance is complicated: mother was a craftsman, she left debts.

With my brothers and sisters, we are emptying the house in Soissons. We manage to make this episode a joyful moment; we share business in a warm atmosphere. It is the best tribute that we can pay to this place, and the best way to leave it.

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