On Fear. And Lost and Found
Recently I found a bracelet that I had long forgotten about. Tucked in a drawer I very rarely look in I was surprised to see it, along with another, that I had put away I suppose for safe keeping and as often happens with a safekeeping spot it becomes so safe that it has been forgotten.
This dainty, delicate bracelet with exceedingly small beads was the last Christmas gift given to me by my younger sister who died so unexpectedly exactly one month to the day post-Christmas. I might have worn the bracelet three or four times before deciding it might break, and I would be heartbroken to lose this last symbolic gesture from my sister.
When I opened the box and saw this delicate piece of craftsmanship, I did not fail to notice that each bead hung on the thinnest, stretchy, plastic wire. I knew that if that wire should break, I could take it to a jeweler and have the beads restrung. But then it would no longer be the bracelet that my sister had chosen, held in her hands, and wrapped so carefully for me. After her death, the bracelet went into the drawer and out of sight. Fear leading me to make that decision. Fear of further loss.
Could I break this delicate bracelet? Absolutely as I am not as graceful as my sister believed me to be. From early age with a hearing loss in one ear my balance has been off – I sometimes walk into the person I’m walking with, I can trip over my own feet and I often stumble in my hurry to get where I’m going. If there is a doorknob or a handle in my way, I will snag myself on it. I sometimes move with the grace of a hippopotamus while imagining I look like a gazelle. Not always, but often enough. I have never seen myself as delicate or dainty. But my sister did. She saw something I had never seen in myself. Until now.
Yes, I am strong, and I wear a suit of armour at times because it protects me from being vulnerable. But underneath that armour my sister could see “who” I really am and who I was to her. Her gifts, which were always of the ultra-feminine, delicate type, were a message to me to see that inner swan.
My sister would be shaking her head over me denying myself the pleasure of this bracelet for as long as I have done. But I wear it now and I’ll put the fear of what might happen aside and think more about the joy that I’ll feel as it slides along my wrist and it makes me think of her and all the times she stood on the sidelines, cheering me on, wanting me to the be the best version of myself possible. What if it breaks? Oh, but what if it doesn’t.