I'm Here For You 23/7

It's amazing to me how time spent with one person can lift your mood from a two to, like, an eight - just by way of conversation and laughter.

Until I can get back to a state of normality, I'm just going to tell stories. Expect a lot of stories for a while.

My mother's mother died when my mother was only two years old. My grandfather remarried, which we have since determined seemed sort of a practical arrangement more than anything - she was a widow as well, with a son of her own. She needed a home and support, he needed a mother for his children, they became a family. She was a mother, but had some interesting quirks. My mother became very close with her aunt Trudy, her father's brother David's wife. Trudy and David were a wonderful couple who never had any children of their own and sort of became my mother's surrogate parents (and were her godparents as well). Incidentally, their wedding date of June 2 is also the wedding date of my mother and stepfather, and was to be (and will be) my wedding date as well. They were married 60-plus years until my great-uncle died about four years ago.

Most of my most treasured possessions (and my mother's as well) come from that marriage. My mother has Trudy's diamond engagement ring, I have many of my uncle David's books and some of his tinkerings. I get my green eyes and much of my intellectual ability, curiosity, creativity, quickness, and dry wit from David (although the Wiley side is also very heavy on dry wit.) David was a brilliant man who loved to create puzzles and build things, including the grandfather clock he pieced together that stood in their living room. One of my favourite things, a sterling silver lily-of-the-valley patterned carving set that belonged to them, was to be (and will be) my cake set for my (eventual) wedding.

When I was born, Aunt Trudy sent my mom a gift for me, a delicate necklace. It was a dainty gold chain with a tiny gold pendant, a rectangle with two small diamonds in the middle. It was to be given to me on my 16th birthday.

On my sixteenth, my mother presented me with the necklace, in the original box and with the long letter my aunt had written with the gift. It was a lovely letter, full of recollections of my mother's childhood and Aunt Trudy's wishes for me and us as a family.

I rarely wore the necklace because even though it's not the most valuable piece of jewelry I own, it is definitely the most precious. Because I don't often wear it, it gets lost frequently. No less than four times in my life, I have determined that it was gone forever.

While packing boxes a few days ago, I pulled it out of a small wooden box I found in my closet. I nearly cried - I thought I'd lost it for good. (Oddly, I'd never noticed but Travis took one look at it and said, "Hey, it's a Gemini necklace." I hadn't looked at the design that way, but he had a good point!) I've been wearing it for a few days now - with my mother and father now so far away, and with David gone and Trudy in poor health, it gives me a degree of comfort and reassurance - my family is large but not close-knit, but those of us who are close are strong and connected in a very deep and insurmountable way. Kind of like this tiny delicate necklace that has somehow never broken or really ever been lost.