The Pendant

The little pendant glimmered in the palm of her hand. She had unearthed it from the little box it came in. On the back was an old price tag that read Walmart, $1.99. It had come with a necklace, but at some point she had separated the two. Maybe it was for her seventh-grade dance.

The necklace was long gone, but the pendant was still here in this box, next to the photo album she had been looking for. It had been years since she had seen it. It amazed her that it had survived. Survived so many moves as a child. Survived her first move into her own place with roommates, and then into her first home with her husband. And now, in the deep recesses of the downstairs closet, at the bottom of a box marked “Photo Albums,” it had sat here, surviving.

It had survived the man who gave it to her.

A simple man of few words. He took care of the entire family by operating heavy machinery, cranes and oversized bulldozers. When she was little, she would beg to sit on his lap and pull the levers, helping him dig a foundation for a basement. Sometimes he would let her.

It was just a little crystal covered with silver plating that cost less than two dollars. But it was a gift from the man she called Dad, the man who made her feel safe and beautiful.

He was gone now.

And upstairs were her own children, and even a couple of grandchildren, who had come over to watch football, eat pumpkin pie, and thank God for another good year. She wanted them to see pictures of the people they came from, the people who had loved her. And she had found this heirloom of love.

Upstairs she went with the boxes and the pendant in her pocket. The house was full of smiling people and the smell of turkey almost ready.

She called out, “Darling, come here.”

A little five-year-old girl in a princess dress ran over and said, “Yes, Grandma?”

“I have something for you.”

She carefully removed the necklace from her little granddaughter’s neck, slipped the pendant onto it, and put it back around her neck.

“Your great-grandpa gave this to me, and I want you to have it.”

“Ooh, pretty.”

“He loved me, and I love you.”

“Thank you, Grandma,” she said, then screamed out, “Mom, look!”

The pendant wasn’t meant just to survive in a box. It was meant to live around the neck of someone she loved. Someone her dad would have loved.