Kailyn Rhinehart
@kailrhine

“When I grow up and get married, am I going to marry Luke?” my daughter asks from the backseat, where she sits next to Luke—her brother. 

I glance in the rearview mirror to check for oncoming traffic and force down my laughter. My eyes graze over her doe-eyed innocence on their way back to the road. 

“Marry Luke? No! Oh gosh, no. He’s your brother. You don’t marry your brother!” I hope my answer doesn’t land on her ears too harshly as I fumble to suppress my amusement. Did this question live in her head all day at school? Or maybe she came up with it in the car? What a place, inside a five-year-old’s brain. 

“Well then, who will I marry?” 

I hear myself start to answer before my brain can craft the perfect response.  

“Whoever you want!” My voice is shrill, maybe a little too loud. The volume attempts to disguise my awkwardness over her question. My daughter asks two hundred questions before breakfast. Why am I so caught off guard by this one? My mind whirrs with a list of cautionary tales about boys and heartbreak, and I resist the urge to smother her with expectations of her future husband. 

“Well…” my daughter says, not quite satisfied with my answer. I can hear the insides of her head churning with another question. 

“How will I find someone to marry?” 

I picture myself giving a toast at her wedding. Turning to the groom, I say: I remember the day she asked about you. It was a Thursday. I had just picked her up from preschool. She wanted to know where to find you. I know I’m the mom, and I’m supposed to have all the answers, but I had no clue what to say. We’re at your wedding now, so I guess she found you … Congrats, guys!

“Well baby,” I tell her, snapping myself back to the present, “You’ll find someone. You’ll fall in love. Then you’ll marry him.” I resolve to keep my answer simple, hoping to stifle any follow-up questions. 

“Oh!” she says, satisfied with my answer. “That sounds easy! Like … really easy!” 

“Sometimes, baby,” I chuckle, unable to contain my amusement any longer.

***

My husband proposed to me three times—sort of. 

The first was during our first summer together. We donned candy ring pops on the beach at sunset. Sprawled on the New England shoreline, we basked in the innocence and excitement of young love. He didn’t get down on one knee or anything, but he didn’t have to. We clinked the rings together as if they were glasses of fancy champagne and snapped ridiculous selfies, barely eighteen and disgustingly in love.

The second proposal was less than a year later. I had flown down from college to visit him. We said goodnight one night—giddy at just being in the same time zone—and then he reached into the side of his car door and presented me with another ring pop as though it were worth more than a few bucks.

“Will you marry me?” he asked, His casual tone didn’t match the words that sprang from his mouth. “I mean, not now,” he stuttered, “But like, sometime … eventually.” 

I giggled, thankful he couldn’t see my red cheeks in the darkness. My fingers squirmed against the plastic wrapper and the ring dropped to the floor. He found it, and I slipped it on. We kissed and laughed, both knowing the importance of the moment and that our promises were worth more than the price of the candy. 

His final proposal was just as simple, though the ring pop was replaced with a real diamond. 

He filled the afternoon of my favorite holiday with a series of distractions. With my best friend and family as his accomplices, our Christmas Eve culminated at our favorite park in town. It was perfectly simple—no fireworks or neon signs—just us in the middle of a bridge. I don’t remember the big speech he said as he got down on one knee. I do remember saying yes over and over again. We walked back over the bridge deliriously happy, the fourth finger of my left hand a little heavier than before. 

A few weeks later, I reluctantly sent my shiny new ring to get resized. One evening after I entered my apartment, I flopped onto the bed with a sigh and lamented the emptiness of my finger to my college roommate. 

“What do I do for four to six weeks? I just got it, now it’s GONE!?” I whined, before flinging my hand in her direction so she could see such atrocity for herself.

She reached into a drawer and tossed me a twist tie. “Here, this should do for now!” she laughed. I rolled my eyes, then glanced at my vacant finger, slightly considering her offer. 

How else was everyone going to know I was getting married?

***

Seven years into our marriage, I lost my rings. 

Yes, the one my husband proposed with, as well as the additional band he gave me on our wedding day. And yes, the expensive ones. 

Upon searching every inch of our home and finding nothing, I drove to Target and Costco to search in the same parking spots I sat in three days before. I dug through the crevices of my car and sifted through every pile of crumbs, with all the intensity of someone searching for, well, diamonds. 

Months after they went missing, I would remember the loss and sob. Sporadic waves of guilt and sinking nostalgia washed over me. How could I have lost something so meaningful? How would I ever replace the irreplaceable?

I mourned the loss of my rings at first. Then I mourned the memories the rings contained. But eventually, I realized I was mourning a symbol. I lost something, sure, but the thing that actually mattered—my marriage—hadn’t suffered the loss. Through it all, I came to realize the rings didn’t matter.

Marriage means choosing to do life alongside my husband. It means humbling ourselves and each other through each chapter we write, even the messy or ugly pages we’d like to erase. 

I loved those rings and they were certainly special, but, without them, I came to understand marriage is less about rings and more about the actions and moments we fill our lives with. 

Just after he gave me the first diamond, my husband and I attended premarital counseling. I knew all the answers. Everyone said marriage wouldn’t be easy, but I believed it could be. I remember sinking deep into the worn leather chair in our pastor’s office, imagining myself as a wife—proud of the role I hadn’t yet had to play. I had it in the bag, and the shiny jewel on my left hand was my golden ticket.

It didn’t take long to shatter my glamorous expectations. The humbling realization that my husband and I were two imperfect humans barely waited until we got home from the honeymoon, and I continue to learn marriage is nowhere near easy every single day. The success of our marriage has nothing to do with diamonds, elaborate proposals, or the right answers to questions about love (asked by five-year-olds or pastors). It is the daily act of saying yes—to choosing my husband and our marriage—rings or no rings. 

***

Back in the car, I glance at the two silicone bands on my finger—the ones that replaced the diamonds I lost. One is white, the other is matte black. Neither sparkle, but that’s okay with me because they show the world I am spoken for by the guy whose children I chauffeur to the park. 

I know the worth of my marriage isn’t measured by the cost of what’s on my left hand. Or even that there’s anything on it at all. But it reminds me of both the promise I made years ago, and the one I make every day.

Maybe one day I’ll be able to come up with a better answer to the marriage questions my daughter asked on the way home from preschool. Maybe one day I’ll figure out how to explain to her how hard and how wonderful marriage really is. Most of all, I pray my example is better than any words I could tell her. 

I want my daughter to know marriage is both candy rings at sunset and searching for diamonds in piles of crumbs. 

And I definitely want her to know the rings don’t matter. 

Guest essay written by Kailyn Rhinehart. Kailyn is a wife and mom to two wild and beautiful, blond babes, currently living wherever the military says to. She is a kindergarten teacher turned writer. She drinks too much coffee and writes too many lists. Despite being a New England native, she's found a deep love for the South's year-round sunshine.