Chronicles of Vatervaar : St. Patrick's Heart

Couple days late, I know, but I have some thoughts I wanna share.

The Google Doodle for this year's St. Patrick's Day was this:

My mother taught me to appreciate the beauty of stained glass, but what caught my eye was the heart, hands, and crown. I thought, "Claddagh ring!"

Some of you might be thinking, "Claddah ring? What's that?" Well, I shall tell you. Claddagh rings come from Ireland, and always have hands holding a heart that's wearing a crown, like so:

One cool thing is that every piece symbolizes something: the hands mean friendship, the heart means love, and the crown means loyalty (that one's my favorite). BUT the coolest thing about the claddagh rings is that the way you wear them tells others the status of your heart! I'll let Wiki summarize this for me:

On the right hand with the point of the heart toward the fingertips, the wearer is single and may be looking for love. (This is most commonly the case when a young woman has first received the ring from a relative, unless she is already engaged.)
On the right hand with the point of the heart toward the wrist, the wearer is in a relationship. (This suggests that the wearer's heart has been "captured".)
On the left hand with the point of the heart toward the fingertips, the wearer is engaged.
On the left hand with the point of the heart toward the wrist, the wearer is married

I got super excited when I reminded myself about MY claddagh ring! My engagement ring is very small and ergonomic, but I haven't been wearing it because it has a loose bur in the metal near the diamond that catches on most fabrics. I usually just wear my wedding band which I'm fine with when I'm at home, but when I'm out in public I feel like people can't see that I'm married. I've worn my cubic zirconium replacement for several months out in public, but I lost it! I've been wanting another one, but don't want to spend the money. (We're superbly broke.) Then I was reminded of my claddagh ring!

I ran to one of my many junk drawers, found my ring tackle box (it's a small one), and pulled out my claddagh ring. As I placed it on my left hand, with the heart pointing towards the wrist, I felt this deep connection, love, and loyalty towards Cool Apa. As I thought about the symbolism of the ring, I realized that my heart belongs to this man:

Haha! I LOVE that picture! It describes my Cool Apa, PERFECTLY. He took it between posing for this one:

Wow, I loved him so much when we took that picture! I only knew him for one month! This is my favorite picture of us together. It reminds me why we fell in love.

We've been married for 2.5 years and after living together a while, you loose some mystery about the one you fell in love with. Life is stressful, finances are non-existent, graduation seems a millennium away, babies come, the house gets messy, and the hours in the day fly out the window; these make for some real good communication improvement exercises! You start to realize why he was meant to be your mate forever; he's the one that is going to scrape off your rough edges, and you his. BUT you know you can and do trust him, because you gave him your heart.

In fact, I didn't just give him my heart, I made a covenant with God and Cool Apa that I would be his, forever. I covenanted, by the power of God, that he could have my heart. After we were married in the Idaho Falls Temple, we were asked to hug all of our guests as they exited. My parents were near the end and my already weeping mother just held me tight. (If I hadn't been so shocked that the nature of my eternal existence had just changed, I'm sure I would have been weeping too.) Then she moved to Cool Apa and as he hugged her, he said to her, "I will take care of her," and had a confident, strong, protective look on his face. I'm very grateful I got to witness that moment.

I know I can trust him because I gave him my heart.