PEARL PROMISE

Meredith’s Musings | article by MEREDITH MCKINNIE

I’ve never been a jewelry person. I rarely wear lipstick, opting for no makeup or the bare minimum of powder, eyeliner, and mascara. A red lip is reserved for special occasions. My husband frequently catches me sans wedding ring. It’s a beautiful single oval diamond on a tiny band, and though I love it, I got used to not wearing it during the swollen fingers faze of pregnancy and have yet to return to the velvet-covered box each morning. Oddly enough, I did go through a woodworking period and made elaborate jewelry racks from old windows. I made them for friends and family members. I removed the glass, lined the back with mesh netting and installed J hooks on the panel separators. My cousins swooned and quickly posted pics of their elaborate costume jewelry collections on the new racks. I made one for myself, though it’s currently sandwiched in the back of my closet as I recently gave away all the jewelry I never wear, but couldn’t bring myself to part with the rack I had spent hours constructing.

My older sister loves jewelry. Her version of getting dressed includes stacked necklaces and bracelets in various shades of gold. She puts much effort into her appearance, and it suits her personality. She sells handmade pieces on Etsy. Her style is dainty signature pieces for tiny wrists and necks that warrant decoration. I’ve always hesitated drawing attention to my short neck or thick wrists, so other than a FitBit to track my steps, I wear little to nothing. Last Christmas, she gave me a mother-of-pearl necklace. As it goes with the abundance of gifts received over the course of two weeks, the necklace sat atop my dresser waiting to be acknowledged. My toddler became obsessed with necklaces as soon as she could pronounce the word, constantly pulling on chains when embraced. She would come into a room with a phone cord around her neck or old Mardi Gras beads; she longed for decoration. She was in my arms, surveying her surroundings, when she noticed the necklace and asked to see it. She cradled the thin chain in her tiny stacked palms and lifted it toward my face. “It so pretty, Mom. You no wear it?” The irony of my daughter requesting her mother wear a mother-of-pearl necklace was not lost on me.

I draped the strand around my neck to the delight of a toddler. She immediately nestled her cheek against the stone and sighed. That’s the sweetest moment, the sigh that accompanies her hugs. For the next several days, she would ask to touch it, again rolling the stone back and forth in her hands, “so pretty, so pretty.” I flashed back to writing my maternal grandmother’s eulogy, about how she too would wear vintage rings and bracelets and paint her lips in a dramatic shade of red. She liked pretty things too, and my daughter acknowledging the same sentiment of the great-grandmother she never met brought me to tears. One of the drawbacks of waiting until my late thirties to bear children is the loved ones that didn’t live to meet them. I met my husband six months after we buried my grandmother.

Ever since that day my daughter insisted I wear the necklace, it hasn’t left my neck. I often forget it’s there until my 11-month-old grabs and pulls at it. Her strong grip and the frequency of her tugs means the chain will inevitably break. The toddler is now so used to its presence that it doesn’t catch her attention as often. I catch myself rotating the stone through my fingers while in deep thought or entangling my hands when I soap my body in the shower. As I towel off in the bathroom light, it shimmers slightly around my neck, and I smile.