My granddaughter is drawn to anything sparkly. If it’s pink or purple – or both – all the better.
One afternoon, I set my jewelry box in the middle of the bed. She climbed up next to me, legs tucked under, already reaching.
We went through it together. I told her about the pearls I wore on my wedding day. My Delta Gamma pin. The garnet ring my husband – her Pops – gave me for my very first Mother’s Day, for our January baby.
She listened, but only for so long.
“Ooh, Cookie, what’s this?”
Her finger landed on a couple of bracelets tucked into the back corner. I hadn’t seen them – much less worn them – in decades.
My charm bracelets. Both were silver.
Memories of Middle School
I handed her the clunkier one first. This heavier, sturdier one was a middle school Christmas present. I remember my dad at the kitchen table, soldering each charm on the bracelet as I got them.
The charms jangled softly as she turned the bracelet over in her small hands. She fingered the megaphone, and I told her about my days as a cheerleader.
“Like me?” she asked, turning the swimmer around.
“Like you,” I said.
A peace sign. A mortarboard. A cross.
Then the little diary.
“Ooh! This one opens!”
Inside, still tucked in place, a picture of me as a teenager.
“And this book – is it for the one you wrote?”
“No,” I said. “That one’s just because I loved to read.”
There was a palm tree from the beach trips we took every summer. Two days in the car, two weeks in the same place. Nothing fancy, just what we could afford. My grandmother brought me back an Aztec calendar from one of her adventures.
I hadn’t thought about any of it in years.
Bracelet of Married Life
Then the other bracelet. The one my husband gave me after we got married. When I seemed too old – too adult – to wear high school jewelry.
A wedding bell. A cable car – we were living in San Francisco then, in a tiny apartment. A little house, from when we finally scraped together the money to buy one. A sea turtle from our honeymoon in Hawaii. A gingerbread man to represent the houses I began making years ago and still do every Christmas. Assorted charms from our travels – a Patriot hat from Boston, a Philadelphia Liberty Bell. A crown from our first trip abroad, to London.
And a baby shoe – her dad.
And then the charms stopped. The bracelet just ended.
At some point, I must have taken it off and put it away. Probably when our two small boys consumed my time and energy, and sporting a delicate bracelet didn’t seem practical for my new phase of life.
And then I forgot about it.
I Was Someone Before I Was Her Cookie
She sat beside me, turning the bracelets in her hands, seeing something I don’t think she’d considered before – that I was someone before I was her Cookie.
Not just a grandmother.
A girl. A young woman. Someone who had her own things going on, long before she arrived in the world.
A New Bracelet for Her Own Journey
Now she wants a charm bracelet.
She’s already decided what charms she needs. A swimmer. A ballet dancer. A book. A bike.
I can’t wait to wrap one up for her next birthday.
And maybe someday, years from now, she’ll pull it out of a box and show it to someone else.
And when she does, she won’t just be telling stories about the charms.
She’ll be remembering where she started.
Let’s Have a Conversation:
Did you have a charm bracelet? Do you have a charm bracelet that you wear now? Do you remember a favorite charm?
