Encounter

I lost my locket.

Well ok, I didn't lose it, rather I think it's on loan. While my Mom was in town, I had a chance to visit my grandmother, Lola (in our language), who is in a care home. I leaned over my Lola so she could get a close look at me, with my Mom telling her who I was, who I was married to (it's so cute that my Lola remembers him more than me at times), my nickname. My locket caught her 94-year-old eyes and she immediately lifted her head even only slightly. Her eyes widened and in her language she asked, "Will you give this to me?"

At first I hesitated, because it was the cheap and cheerful locket that wannabe dad got at your favorite store and mine, the one with the big red dot inside the circle, the piece of jewelry besides my left hand rings that I wear daily except in the shower, the one that I turn around on the highway for if I happen to forget it, and it was my mother's day gift. I did remove it from my neck, open it, and because it's cheap and cheerful, caught the little silver piece that held Cerina's picture in its tiny section of the frame, then upon instruction from my Mom, held it up to Lola's eyes so she could kinda make out the images of her great-granddaughters.

I asked my Mom if Lola knew about them, because the timing of her fall and hip fracture and surgery and hospital stay was a week and a half before I went into the hospital for my own two-week stay (geez that makes it sound like a vacation). And I wasn't adamant about having her know what happened especially because of her condition. So my Mom explained the pictures, that they were my daughters, kambal (twins), that they were born early, that they died, that they were in heaven playing with Tatay (my Mom's dad, my grandfather). As my Mom was explaining this, Lola was slowly winding the chain around her stiff fingers, and when she finished, then she put her hands down and closed her eyes. Only a short time, because my Mom gently held up Lola's hands, found the locket, and said "Kiss your granddaughters" and held the locket to her lips. It wasn't an obvious kiss, yet I was relieved that she knew what happened (I think she understood) with the girls and that she finally "met" them.

Needless to say, my Mom and I were both crying, and after Lola let go of the chain and locket I hung it on the wall in her room so the girls could "be" with their great-gramma. It gives me comfort when I think of where it is.