Grandma's Gold

My Grandma Cordelia Meyer died about this time last year of cancer after a long battle and exhausting dialysis. I've missed her a lot but the whole experience was and still is pretty detached for me, I was so far away from my family when everyone was grieving and making arrangements that I feel like I just sort of missed it all together, like it didn't actually happen. Like she's still in Colorado taking care of people decades younger than her and trucking along vigorously like she always has been. She truly was an amazing woman, she was like a queen and one of the strongest people in existence. I wish I could've spent more time with her when she was still here. I think that's something we all wish for.

When I was in Washington to see my family Easter weekend my dad brought out some of what was left of her jewelry and let me and my sisters pick a few things. It was a fondly amusing experience and one I'm really glad my dad had the insight to allow. My sister and I teased Grandma gently for her gravitation toward costume jewelry [which, I think, is one of the things that make old ladies so adorable] and her insane love of bright, yellow gold. My mom prefers yellow gold too, but all my sisters and I are huge white gold and silver advocates to the point where we find yellow gold hideous to certain degrees. Even so I found joy and beauty in going through her treasures. I loved finding things I could remember her owning, saw her wearing or remember helping my mom pick out for her birthday. When we all got through laughing and remembering it was so interesting to me to see what we all chose; all of it Grandma's jewelry and Grandma's style and yet we all somehow managed to pick things that were just our style. My little sister Ahnahceleh wears a ring now with my Grandma's initials on it and it's just her style. My sister Crista now has necklaces to pass down to her daughters that will look so stunning on them. My mom has a beautiful ring that is exactly her taste in rings. And we all have something to remember Grandma by.

This is the one thing I chose that I thought I'd never wear and here it is, one week later, on my neck. I promise you, I HATE yellow gold, I never think it looks good or good on me. But when I look at this it's so beautiful to me. Craig told me it looked so pretty on me. I fits me just right. When I see it I remember Grandma Meyer and her exquisite taste in everything. And I'm so proud to be wearing Grandma's gold.