Close your rings (what Apple Watch can teach us about relationships)

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6:03 am.

That’s when my dad stopped breathing one year ago today.

It all happened so fast, and as I reflect on it in the early morning hours, I keep thinking about our need for closure. It’s something that I think about a lot since I started wearing an Apple Watch, and I guess I never thought a fitness feature called “Close Your Rings” would be such a powerful metaphor.

Until now.

Until I saw those three numbers on the microwave clock as I sipped my coffee in the stillness of an unlit day.

We need closure in our rings – in our circles of relationships – because we never know when they’ll end in this life.

My dad tested positive for COVID-19 on the first Sunday of October in 2021.

He was gone less than three weeks later.

Friends, we aren’t guaranteed a future in which we can close our rings with the people that we love, and too many people have walked away from relationships that mattered over issues that didn’t. Or, at least, issues that weren’t worth the emotional toll of an unclosed ring.

Too many people have walked away from relationships that mattered over issues that didn’t. Share on X

There’s something about looking at my watch and seeing one or two rings that aren’t quite complete that motivates me to want to close it. That’s the genius behind the Apple Watch feature.

The tech wizards and app developers at Apple know something about how we’re wired, and they’ve used it to help people get more fit. They know that we don’t do well with fragments, with unfinished business, with rings that aren’t closed.

They know we’re made for closure, and what’s true about a feature on a watch is also true about our emotional health. We need to close the relationship rings with those we love.

Today is the only day you and I know that we have, and without being too fatalistic, we don’t even know that we have the whole day. What we do have is now.

Use it to close your rings.

Psalm 90:12 says, “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” When we live with the awareness that our days are numbered, we’ll find ourselves making the most of the number of days we have.

If you’ve walked away from people who matter, and left a ring unclosed, then use this day – this moment that we’ve been given – to get closure for yourself and give closure to others. Choose to refuse the relational fragments that are so prevalent in culture today.

Instead, choose to live now so you can leave later with your rings closed.