Will I Ever Get Married? I Keep Them in a Case, Just in Case Mother Knows Best...

It would take a real woman to choose a peridot over a diamond, and a real good lady to really get my attention!

Byline: Qadeem Zieman

 The pair of earrings that I just had to buy a couple of years ago, and the peridot ring my mother slipped on my finger just months before her demise.

I loved it, but no matter how many times I tried to make it look good on me, it just felt odd.

One day, some time in July, or was it August... the maids came to the house for a routine cleaning, one young and one older.

One of them tried to tease me for being a young "good looking" man who was always helping out around the house, while the younger one tried to seduce me by making eye movements and said, "a dream husband".

I didn't like it, not the teasing, not the idea of being married, nor the cringy flirting. Perhaps it was due to my mother's prayers when she was pregnant with me. She was often left upset with the many men in her life but when she saw Kadim Al Sahir, she was attracted to him and instantly named me 'Qadeem Shaher' after the Iraqi classical singer. She wished for me to be as charismatic, yet wouldn't play around with girls like any of her ex-husbands.

Despite having numerous marriages, she still insisted that it was indeed a beautiful part of one's life, and always wanted to see her children get married so she could plan and decorate the wedding venues and gifts. Unfortunately, none of her married children ever considered their mother to be a part of their happy days.

In 2021, she was looking at some wedding pictures online and how they get their 'hantaran' to be.

"Deem, when you get married, you should use this colour. It's very nice, hijau pucuk pisang, very classic!" She said with full excitement.

No doubt, I have had affairs and relationships before, but after learning about her life, at seventeen, I vowed never to be married because I told my mother that I wanted to take care of her instead.

Then a couple of weeks later, the maids moved the big and heavy antique TV console made of wood that we had in the master bedroom. Aside from the many dust and coins behind, there was a shining light green stone set in a ring.

Mama was pleased to see it, but I never understood why. It was just a small green stone with no grand value amongst the rest of her fine selection of jewellery she had acquired throughout the decades, those were perhaps worth almost a million, if not more. I get that we weren't as wealthy anymore after the sudden and shocking misfortune, but it was not gold, not a diamond, it was just a solitaire peridot ring.

She gifted it to me in a very special way, she slipped it on my finger like how one would when they get married.

She smiled.

I've kept it safe ever since until last night when I was reorganising my jewellery collection. I don’t have much, I used to have much more. Real ones! But those were stolen from me during one of the three times that I was robbed at home.

They just couldn't stand me having anything nice. I tell you, it could be a cheap RM3 ring, but "If Qadeem wants it, it's expensive", so they'd take them away.

I looked at the costume jewellery that I bought and the low-cost pieces my mother gifted me.

An Indian sapphire necklace, a pearl necklace, and the vintage gold-plated ones. Those carry such meaningful affairs when I got them, even the pair of pearl and emerald earrings that I got in Bangsar a week after money flooded my bank account. I got it because they were beautiful and I would be reminded of how I used to live.

But this one ring... it shared a similar story to the jewellery cases I just bought online. Unwanted, but perhaps needed.

I wanted long beige velvet cases for my necklaces, but I mistakenly bought three of the rectangular boxes. "I never wanted these!", but perhaps I needed them because they fit more things compared to how the long ones would.

I looked at the earrings and placed them in a black box which the velvet cushion had been overstretched from holding my cocktail rings.

Then I put the peridot ring in the middle of the pair and said, "Just in case..."

I still dislike the idea of being married. Culturally, I hate it that women are expected to stay at home, but personally, I hate the excessive nosy/clingy and saddened melodramatic behaviour, especially when one gets insecure. I prefer to go straight to the point despite being a poet.

But again... "Just in case..." just in case I find that one that I perhaps "never wanted", yet needed desperately.

Just in a case... That is where the 'kit' is placed.

In a black box, safe and secured... in the dark, sacredly waiting to be opened at the right time, for the right lady. The ring, the earrings, and my free heart.