Friday, January 9, 2015

1.9.15 Old Friends

Old friends, they shine like diamonds
Old friends, you can always call
Old friends Lord, you can't buy 'em
You know it's old friends after all.
- Guy Clark


My daughter and I had a lovely visit over lunch with my two of my mother's best childhood friends.  I wish with all my heart that she were still here and could have joined us - but since that wasn't possible, I did what I always do when I want Mom with me - I wore some of her jewelry.  Not surprisingly, when I mentioned the earrings were Mom's, her friends recognized them right away.

My mom wore this pair of simple gold hoops all the time.  Like my silver pair (shared in a previous post) they were the ones she never bothered to put away.  I went looking for a photo of her wearing the earrings and found this one - taken just about a year before she died.  She's holding my niece, who is now 14 - and for whom, along with my own daughter, I've had some of her jewelry reset into new pieces.

Like my mom, my niece has a January birthday.  One year I gave my mom a pair of garnet earrings as a gift - she wore those a lot, too.  Because there were two (earrings and granddaughters) I had the garnets reset as pendants, with another of the small diamonds from Mom's earrings - one for each girl, as a remembrance.  Once again, the work was done by Chuck Schaffer at Russell Korman Jewelers.


I'm so grateful for all the connections I still have to my mom - through her friends (who have become my friends, too, especially as adults), my family, and the tangible tokens she left to me.

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