Shell here,

Here is a quick story of a little gold chain.

I knew the day I met Art that I was going to marry him. If you can picture this, I was sixteen years old and Art was nineteen years old. Sometimes I shutter at this because now Jay is seventeen years old and I can’t even imagine her saying she found the young man she is going to marry. But my life and upbringing are much different than hers and I am actually grateful for that.

After I met Art we dated for eight years before we tied the knot in holy matrimony. We had a huge Cinderella wedding. I found my true love, and we were supposed to live happily ever after. We always did cute little things for each and every day we found a way to express our love to each other. He always brought home flowers, little gifts such as jewelry and even sometimes dinner. Art was always a romantic and full of surprises. In truth, while we were dating I was always the romantic one but once we become a married couple he stepped up and was the romantic and my efforts slipped a little.

Then one day Art mentioned how he liked the looked of gold chains on men; I am not sure if we were watching something, but I never forgot he said that. Our three-month wedding anniversary was coming up and I wanted to do something for him. Naturally, I went to the jewelry store he always used and asked the lady to help me pick out a gold chain for him. Out of all the gifts over our twenty-seven years together I have to say the gold chain was the biggest hit I ever did. He loved it so much and he said he was never going to take it off for as long as he lived.

Art, being a man of word, did precisely that. He wore it until a few days before he died, gifting it to our daughter and showing her that love has a strong bond and he loved her more than anything in this world. I will never forget the day he gifted our symbol of love to her. We were all crying, even if Jay says she doesn’t remember, we were all crying.

Jay here!

My Little Gold Chain

It’s strange the things we remember about someone after they die. We have the things we hope people will remember; perhaps stories will be told of our bravery, or we’ll be remembered by our kindness. I don’t remember a lot about my dad because I was so young and I feel like I forget more with every passing day, but there are some things I will always remember when I think of my dad. In addition to his humor, kindness and bravery, I’ll always think of his little gold chain necklace.

It seems silly, but as long as I was alive that necklace seemed to be a part of him, like he was born with it. The only time I ever saw him without it is when he had to take it off for cancer treatments, and even then I rarely saw him while the necklace was off because he was so quick to put it back on.

When I was little and I’d snuggle up in his lap, sometimes I reach up and play with his necklace. It’d twist the back around to the front so that I could hold the smooth clasp in the back, and he loved me so much he would let me. Snuggling with my dad and watching the DIY channel are some of my fondest memories with him, and the necklace was always a part of that. The necklace was there in all of my memories of my dad for as long as I can remember; it seemed to be an entwined part of him. Even when he was hospitalized and I’d lay in his hospital bed with him, while he changed so much as his skin became yellow, his thick hair disappeared and his figure was reduced to skin and bones, his necklace was consistently there.

When his hospital bed became a hospice bed and he knew he was dying, he had to decide what would become of his beloved necklace.

While my memory is fuzzy, there are some things I distinctly remember, and the day my dad gave away his necklace is one of them. He was lying in his hospice bed, and he and my mom sat me down next to him. I don’t remember exactly what he said to me; I wish I had an eidetic memory so I could recall what he said word for word. That day, he told me the story of how he got the necklace: mom gave him the necklace for their three-month wedding anniversary, and he saw it as a symbol of love. It was just a normal necklace, but it was special because my mom gave it to him.

I remember the feeling of him telling me that he loved me as he took off his necklace and placed it around my neck. This is the part of that day I remember most clearly. As he took it off, I remember how strange it was to see him without his precious necklace. It’s like he was giving me a vital part of himself, like he was Iron Man and he just handed me his arc reactor. He didn’t look whole without it. He already didn’t look like himself because he was dying; he was skinny, jaundice and bald, but in my eyes, the act of giving away his necklace completed his transformation into a dying man.

 I distinctly remember the feeling of turning around so that my dad could put this precious necklace on me. While he loved my mom and myself the most, this necklace was the third most important thing to him in the world, and he was putting it on me. He could have just as easily given it to my mom; after all, she is the one who gave it to him in the first place. I felt so honored and loved as my dad trusted me with his prized possession; it was a moment I’ll never forget. While it was incredible, it was also sad and scary to watch my dad, a dying man, give away the thing he loved most. This was the moment I started to accept the fact he was actually dying, that he really wasn’t going to be a miracle case and get better on hospice, and that’s what made it so bitter-sweet. The room was overflowing with love, but the sorrow of goodbye filled the air.

Truthfully, it felt strange the first few weeks I wore the necklace. I’ve never been much of a jewelry person beyond some earrings or a necklace for a fancy event. Usually I feel like such accessories are a nuisance, but I refused to take off the necklace my dad had put on me as one of his final acts in life. Still, it felt odd to wear a necklace twenty-four hours a day seven days a week. Occasionally it would catch on something, but I quickly grew used to its presence and adapted. If I’m missing my dad or I’m anxious about something, I usually reach up and just hold the necklace by instinct now. Sometimes I just catch myself holding it so I know that it’s still with me.

The first time I was in a show and I had to take it off, I was devasted. My dad put it on me before he died and taking it off felt like a betrayal. I knew that if I took it off, my dad wasn’t there to put it on me again. I don’t remember if I cried real tears or if I was too numb to cry, but that was the first of many times I would have to take my necklace off. When I’m in theatre productions, sometimes my costume is able to hide my necklace somewhere on my person; other times, my mom has to hold onto my necklace for me. While I love performing, I feel the same distain for taking off the necklace that my dad did. When I’m nervous and I reach up to touch the necklace that isn’t there, panic flashes through my body. I have to remind myself where the necklace is, and that it is safe. One of my greatest fears to this day is that I will somehow lose it.

My hope is that I will proudly wear my dad’s necklace until I am old and grey, and then I will pass the precious gold necklace onto my offspring. Then they can tell the story of me, my dad and my mom as my kid pass the necklace onto their kids, and they’ll pass it onto their kids. I hope that we can pass the necklace and it’s meaning, along with the love and stories that go along with it through generations to come.

Aloha and gratitude,

Jay and Shell