Jul 312010
 

My pappap wore this big thick diamond ring on his pinky. It was masculine, just oozing with rich testosterone. We would go to church together every Saturday night (yes, when my pappap was in my life, I really did believe in God), and sometimes he would rap his pinky against the pew and whisper, “One day, this ring will be yours.”

And it was. For a day.

He Willed it to me, and I was “allowed” to wear it on a chain for my senior pictures. It was really the only piece of him I had after he died.

And it was taken from me.

My family was afraid I’d run off and pawn it, which was apparently, to them, a typical Erin thing to do. I haven’t seen that damn ring since I was seventeen.

According to my Aunt Sharon, my grandma put it somewhere “safe” for when I was “older” and now she “can’t find it.”

That bullshit smells worse than the hair grease on the cast of Jersey Shore on a humid day.

But what I do have is a charm bracelet. My grandfather used to take me to Europe when I was a kid, and on one of the trips, he thought it would be a good idea to put together a charm bracelet for me. So every city we visited, we would stop in several jewelry shops, looking for the perfect representation of that city in charm-form.

When I went to Australia by myself in 2001, I carried on the tradition and found a gold koala. It was bittersweet, coming home and taking it to a jeweler without my pappap. But it’s the one thing I own that I look at feel like I do still have a piece of him with me.

I almost never wear it for two reasons:

  • It’s easily the most expensive thing I own and it makes me feel like I’m flashing a strobe light for all the muggers in the city.
  • It’s REALLY FUCKING JANGLY.

  8 Responses to “19: My Prized Possession”

  1. this made me sad — the relatives hiding the ring from you. ugh.

    My aunt gave me her grandmother’s wedding ring many years ago — she told me she wanted to give it to her daughter but realized that her daughter would totally lose it — and I wrote her a thank you letter and told her I was too scared to wear it, due to the intense family history it represents… she told me not to be an ass and to wear it already if I want to. And I did, until I was in a restaurant one day and it flew across the room (I’m a handtalker, unfortunately). Now it usually stays in an old altoids tin/jewel box.

    I think I would be in a constant state of panic if I had a charm bracelet like yours and wore it in public. Or private. I’d get it caught in stuff and then curse myself for trying to be fancy.

  2. Omg those relatives suck! D:

  3. What a pretty bracelet! And it was so sweet of your pappap to do with you.
    Looking at some of the charms, I’m guessing you went to Rome, Paris, and Amsterdam?

  4. That really sucks that they hid the ring from you. Unbelievable. :(

    That’s a gorgeous bracelet, though. It’s like all the charms tell a story.

  5. Yay, a Pappap post! I’ll bet you have some awesome stories about you guys being in church together; all the inside jokes that must have come from that.

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