Yesterday, I saw a video of Tom Sawyer.It had been a while since I'd read the story. I forgot he gave his shiny doorknocker to Becky Thatcher as symbol of engagement. We all smile knowingly, but whoever decided it had to be diamond rings? Can't it be one of those "broken medallions" where both partners keep the partial fragments, and the centerpiece is whole only when the two are united? I always liked those heart-shaped lockets.
A very long time ago, in Okinawa, it seemed to have been custom to tattoo married women's fingers black, so you looked down at women's hands to see if she had, not a wedding band, but a tattoo! Nowadays, a tattoo symbolizes a free spirit, but back then it meant you were owned.
But Grandma Urata, I noticed, was young enough to wear a wedding band. With the ringed hand she poured kerosene on the dead idol she had found freedom from before lighting it aflame. Altho' as head priestess she had set up ancestor worship spots all over the island, she wanted to show homage to her new Love, the One True God and did so with this idol-burning ceremony in front of the family tomb.
"If the Son therefore will make you free, you will be free indeed." (John 8:36)
Some people say it is not in the gift but in the feeling behind the gift. I think it is, as they say, case-by-case. Yes, Becky was special to Tom, and yes, he wanted to give her his most precious possession, but I think I would've done the same thing Becky did: she RAN when Tom put on her hand his bullfrog!
