Years ago, I sat beside a woman at a fancy Christmas party in a five-star hotel. Her elegant fingers sparkled with precious stones. She had a large engagement ring and a constellation of other finger jewellery, a diamond for each time she had become a mother. She was not a boastful person, but when I asked, she happily told me the story of the shiny rings, all gifts from her husband. Each one brought her joy and reminded her of a special time.
We were around the same age, this woman and I, but she seemed so much more worldly. She had excellent posture. Her dress was delicate and strappy, her hair tied back in an actual chignon. I imagined her loosening the hair pins later, sitting in front of a mirror at an uncluttered mid-century dressing table. I saw her open a velvet box into which she carefully placed her diamond rings.
I’ve always fantasised about being the kind of woman possessed of an uncluttered dressing table, a woman who is given or who buys herself precious things.
When Taylor Swift was on Graham Norton’s couch earlier this year, sitting with impressively nonchalant Corkonian Cillian Murphy and effortlessly charming Dubliner Domhnall Gleeson, she showed off her large diamond engagement ring. She told Norton that she loved the ring so much, she was watching it “like a TV”. The ring was her favourite show other than Gleeson’s new TV series The Paper. This endorsement from such a huge star made him and the show’s creators extremely happy. I admired how, in celebrating her own joy, Swift was spreading sunshine to others.
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I’d like to think that if I ever owned a diamond ring, I’d be the same as Swift, watching it like a TV show. But that’s just another fantasy. In reality I’d be watching it like a hawk, anticipating the day when I’d lose it. I know I would lose it. I did not have an engagement ring when I asked my partner of 24 years to marry me. There was no diamond ring. We just got married. Some people should not own precious things. I am one of those people.
Should there be women-only carriages on trains? / Christmas gift ideas
Sometimes though, a thing is precious, not because of cut or carats, but because of what it represents. More than 20 years ago, when I lived in Belfast, and was newly in love with my now-husband, my sister Rachael and her husband Paul gave me a Christmas present. It was a small stone sculpture of a young woman and a man sitting side by side. The couple had no facial characteristics or clothes, but the hair – hers long, his short and tousled – resembled mine and Jonny’s. It was a tiny work of art, a symbol of our relationship. It was precious. We moved to Dublin to an apartment and then to our house, and the statue came with us, reminding me of our long-ago beginnings.
Then one day, dusting probably, Jonny knocked over the statue and it broke into many pieces. It was just a thing, but it upset me to see the small, stone people in bits. It sounds stupid when I write it down here, but it felt as though, if the statue was broken, then somehow we were also damaged. I put the pieces in a small plastic container and they sat in a quiet corner of our bedroom for years.
Sometimes, especially after an argument, I’d look at them and feel a pang. On better days, I’d hope Jonny would have the sculpture mended and surprise me with the fixed version. He has many wonderful attributes. But he is not that person. I forgot about the broken pieces. Life carried on.
Christmases came and Christmases went. And then two years ago, a different kind of Christmas arrived. My first Christmas on crutches – I broke my ankle badly after slipping on a wet pavement on my way to a carol service. My first Christmas with cancer – two weeks before the fall I’d been told I had Stage 4 breast cancer which had spread to my bones. My first alcohol-free Christmas – I’d decided to deal with all of this sober, instead of milling into the wine – an inspired decision as it turned out.
‘That seismic, sober Christmas Eve in my sister’s house, with a broken ankle and cancer-covered bones, was proof to me that joy is always possible, that joy is a choice’
That seismic, sober Christmas Eve in my sister’s house, with a broken ankle and cancer-covered bones, was proof to me that joy is always possible, that joy is a choice. We all chose joy that night, eating, singing, laughing and exchanging gifts. I remember telling myself not to forget that evening. I knew the memory of it would sustain me in the difficult days that were to come.
Last Christmas Eve, I was back in my sister’s house after a transformative year of challenging cancer treatment and a life-enhancing wedding. That night, Rachael handed me a gift. Unwrapping it, I was amazed to see, peeking out from under the paper, the two little people. Her feet were missing, as was a piece of his arm, but there they were, shoulder to shoulder again. As I laughed and cried, Rach explained that with the help of my mother, she had retrieved the plastic container of pieces, got out the UHU, and spent a night putting them back together.
I don’t need diamond rings. Or shiny things. I’m not that woman. Give me something broken and then glued back together with love. The couple sit on my bedroom windowsill now, looking out at the street. Weathered, worn and changed but still here. We’re all still here. Happy Christmas.
