Keeping it in the Family

I don’t think I’m alone in admitting that it’s very easy to take a mother’s support and love for granted. Although I know that my mum deserves to be told each day just how amazing she is, I am, like most of you, busy and I forget! That’s why Mother’s Day, for me, is a yearly reminder to make me stop and think about how much I value what the women in my life have taught me – especially the woman that brought me into this world.

It reminds me to be grateful and that I can take a lot from the legacy of the amazingly strong, stylish, intelligent, caring and generous women that I’ve known or know. Because it’s not just my mum that has had moulding influence, it is my Gran, my Aunties, my Sister or my beautiful female friends that may already be or might one day become mothers.

I know I’m lucky to have a mum like mine and this is why I try to make sure that each year she gets something special even if all I can pull together is some hand-picked daffodils from next door’s garden (I was a poor student and it was the thought that counts!)

But this year I could not think of a suitable gift, flowers and chocolates hardly seemed worth it and since I’m only weeks away from getting married I’ve been very reflective. I will no longer be mum’s little girl but will be a wife and maybe one day a mother too. It is an important turning point in both our lives so I wanted to get her something significant and something that would last longer than the taste of chocolate.

Then my Gran popped into my head and so did childhood memories of my sister and I raiding her cupboards and dressing in oversized hats, faux furs and precious jewellery!

My Gran has always been someone I look up to and admired not just for her style but strength of character. Over the years my Gran has been given or inherited some stunning  jewellery pieces. But it was her rings that would always delight my sister and I and she has always told us that those rings would one day be passed down to us as her grandchildren.

Now I’m in no rush to receive her jewellery and I’m hoping that my Gran has decades left on her clock. In fact the thought of her not being around makes my eyes all watery but I know that when the sad day comes I will always have something that was precious to her, or that was given to her by her mother. By wearing the ring I will somehow continue the tradition until one day I can pass them onto my daughter or daughter in law.

I know that material things aren’t everything in this world and I’d love my Gran just the same whether she had diamond rings or not. But to me her rings are part of who she is and I will always want to carry that little bit of her with me.

It was these memories that reminded me how precious gems can be more than just a shiny or lustrous addition to someone’s hand or ear but that they can hold real sentimental value, they can continue to be passed down from generation to generation as a symbol of the legacy left behind . I won’t be able to buy my mum precious pearls or diamonds every year but a pearly gift seems entirely appropriate this year to symbolise the beginning of a new chapter. Then who knows maybe one day Mum can tell her Gran kids that one day these pearls will be theirs.

Do you have any pieces of jewellery that mean a lot to you? Or that were passed down to you from a relative?

Written by RL for pearlwholesaler.com.au