Kristina Miggiani

I lost my fiance three weeks before we were due to be married.

I went from planning a wedding to planning a funeral.

And after having to take so many decisions about coffins and urns and the clothes to send him to the next life in, I just didn't have any bandwidth left to decide what to do with my unworn engagement and wedding rings.

It was only on the five-month anniversary of his death when I woke up in what was once our bed and said, today's the day.

Today's the day I venture to Mount Doom.

which kind of looks like a shopping mall on Black Friday, except it's Germany.

So there are beer-loving and schnitzel-eating orcs running about.

And inside this mall was the jewelry shop from where the rings had been bought.

And I had asked them to hold on to the rings, you know, until I knew what to do with them.

Yaya, they said, take all the time you need.

They obviously didn't know what to do with me, what they called their first case of the fiance-less fiance.

Not that they know that I take my sweet time to make a decision.

I got to the store and the shop assistant seated me in the area overlooking the luxury watches.

And that's where I waited for about 25 minutes.

And I sat there, looking at the adverts on the wall with slogans about love, how diamonds are forever, and how it's time to celebrate.

Much like some people who had tried to console me, it was misguided and at odds with how I was feeling.

The slogan that probably resonated most was, don't crack under pressure.

especially as I sat there thinking how, in a matter of weeks, those rings had gone from the bitter bling-bling I dreamed about since I was a kid to a beautiful promise my fiancé and I had made to each other, and finally something symbolizing everything that hadn't happened, the wedding anniversary that just wasn't.

And that's when I became certain I did not, could not, want to see those rings.

Oh no, no.