With the passing of time and the swelling of knuckles, Mother eventually took off the ten-diamond cluster, never to wear it again.
We talked about the jewelry, of course. Every so often, she’d sit me down with her box of treasures and tell me who this belonged to and who that belonged to … ‘lest I forget. Not that I could. Or would.
One Christmas in the late 1990s, my husband, daughter and I drove from Florida to Georgia to celebrate the holiday—first with my mother and brother, then with my father. As we’d done since my brother and I reached adulthood, we gathered around the tree on Christmas Eve for the passing around of gifts. (This insured being able to sleep late on Christmas Day!) Mother specifically wanted my daughter and me to open the gift she’d gotten for each of us first.
The shape of the boxes was exact. The wrapping, the same. I tore the paper away from mine first to find a Christmas-inspired candle tin. “Oh,” I said. “A candle.”
Not that I don’t like candles, or even love candles. I do. But my mother practically squirmed in her seat with excitement at her choice of gifts for her only daughter and only granddaughter. So … a candle?
“Open it,” she said, grinning like the proverbial Cheshire cat. “It has a wonderful scent.”
I was quite certain it did … probably vanilla or cranberry or spiced apple. Maybe, since the tin was predominately green, a woodsy Christmas tree scent.
I popped open the tin and prepared to inhale.
And stopped. There, wrapped around the wick, lay my grandmother’s engagement ring.
I burst into tears.
“I want you to have it,” Mother said, “while I’m alive to enjoy watching you wear it.”.
I slipped the ring on my right ring finger, then we all turned to my daughter who promptly tore into her gift. Of course … another Christmas-inspired candle tin. She opened the top and pulled out her great-grandmother’s