Once A Little Girl

A woman wears her tears like jewelry.  ~Author Unknown

Mom placed the locket around my neck. I hadn’t worn it since I was 17 years old. She and I opened it. We looked at the sepia toned photos inside. Grandpa Howard, a man I never met and Grandma Mable, a woman that I will never forget. Grandpa drowned before I was born and Grandma, she died in her late 80’s after walking the Mackinaw Bridge on Labor Day.

Whenever I visit Mom at her home Up North, I ask her for a piece of jewelery. Most of the time I’m joking. I know she doesn’t want to part with any of the pieces in her collection. She has some beautiful antique jewelry that belonged to many women in my family. I know the pieces mean a lot to her. The home that she lived in a few years ago…