chapter ten
Remember Her
“We are linked by blood,
and blood is memory without language”
Joyce Carol Oates
Silver Charms on Invisible Threads
My grandmother loved her charm bracelet. Heavily laden with silver charms, it tinkled irresistibly with every grand gesture she made when telling a good story. With the birth of each grandchild, she added a new charm of a boy’s or girl’s head in profile, engraved with the celebrated baby’s name and birth date. They were the symbols of what was most precious to her, and as a child I loved to watch the shiny charms dance and shiver, always looking for the little girl’s head with my name engraved in fancy script.
Perhaps your grandmother had one, too. For centuries, women have worn and loved charm bracelets, not merely as adornment but as a way to honor a precious child or wonderful moment. We celebrate our memories with charms, cast them in gold and silver to keep them near. I suppose we long to make fleeting life feel permanent, if only in symbol. In a way, the beaded evening purse that my grandmother gave me was a charm, too: a talisman to carry into a future that she knew, just knew, was going to shine with all that she hoped for, and prayed for.
My own charm bracelet bears a silver claddagh, the traditional Irish symbol of two hands encircling a crowned heart, representing love, loyalty and friendship. According to Irish tradition, claddagh rings are passed down from mother to oldest daughter or grandmother to granddaughter. My mother tucked this charm in my Christmas stocking many years ago, along with a small card that read, “Remember Her. She loved you so much.”
When I said goodbye to my Grandmother and looked at her small body lying in the casket, she was wearing her charm bracelet, her rosary beads in clasped hands. It was the sight of her hands that gave me the strength I needed on that day, for myself and for my mother.
There was always a beautiful, melodious connection between the two of them, and even as a small child, I could see striking shades of my grandmother in my mother. It was as if they were connected by invisible threads, and I was curious whether one day I too would carry the thread. Would I have the same laugh, the same gesturing hands, the same softened eyes when moved by something beautiful?
Some of my earliest, most luminous memories are of seeing their shared happiness as they delighted together over some small thing I had said or done when I was a little girl, their laughter sounding like it came from the same sheet of music. In those moments I could feel the long passage of time and experience beating in my own heart. Somehow I knew, even then, that I would carry with me their parcels of victory and loss.
I was nine years old when we stepped into the airport in New York after living more than two years in Izmir, Turkey, where my father served in the Air Force. My young mother was the picture of 1970s style in her tall black leather boots and swingy wool cape, a jaunty beret angled atop her frosted blonde hair. I thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world, even prettier than the glamorous Pan Am stewardesses we had both admired in whispers to each other on our long flights across Europe.
But it is my grandmother’s face that I remember most from my first day home in America. The joy in my grandmother’s eyes as she caught sight of my mother was incandescent and it has stayed with me forever, a gift untarnished by years.
As I hung shyly behind my dad and older brothers, I silently watched, mesmerized by the sight of my grandmother’s radiant face as she held my mother. Seeing their shared elation brought tears to my eyes, confusing me at such a tender age. “Why am I crying?” I remember thinking. “I’m so happy!” I was far too young to understand tears of joy, but not to experience them.
I remember how Grandma kept pulling back from their embrace so she could better drink in the sight of the daughter who had finally returned from so far away. And I wonder now if my grandmother was thinking of her own mother, whom she never saw again after she sailed away from Ireland as a young girl. “Lillian, you are so beautiful!” She said over and over, her lilting Irish accent made stronger with emotion. “Just look at how gorgeous you are!”
And sometimes, when my mother says the same words to me now, I can see Grandma’s face exactly as it was on that reunion day long ago, smiling just behind the veil of my mother’s shining eyes.
And I remember her.