Losing a piece of sky, a piece of me

We were sitting on the stadium steps in the sports park, seeking a little privacy to talk over our relational status which had gone through some bumps. 

"I just want to let you know that yes, we can make this relationship work and I am willing to do this with you. I know it will be hard but it will be worth it," I said, emphatically.

He said very little. He simply listened, but his body language opened up little by little. 

I could see the joy in his eyes as I told him that I was ready to embark on a relationship with him no matter the obstacles. As I finished he said, 

"Tomorrow we are coming back here. Same place, same time."

So the next day, we set off walking the mile or so to the park. The group we were with scattered away and we hung back, eventually sitting down underneath a tree. The details of all that surrounded this moment are for another day, or a book on its own, but those details are not needed today.

He pulled out a box, within which was a chain and jewel pendant. Larimar. There was nothing crazy complex about it. A simple, egg-shaped jewel, the most soothing shade of blue with a silver metal edge. I was enchanted. He put it on (or I did? I cannot recall. I do know he fumbled a bit with the latch), and though we had many mountains to climb, in that moment we were in a bliss of love. The dedication, committment and hard-work came later. But my necklace always reminded me of that moment and the bliss. 

In long-distance relationships, relics such as jewelry, a hand-written letter, or a photo mean the world to the couple. The necklace was my way of having my husband constantly present with me. 

During five--nearly six--years, I have hardly taken it off. I have held onto it each time the plane would take off, carrying me away from his side, when our late night phone calls got cut off because the power had gone out at his place, I would hold onto it and fall asleep. When nervous, I grabbed it, rubbing it along the chain, pressing it to my chest, doing a million things with it that I was unconcious of.

The necklace wittnessed our engagement, our marriage, our first months in our own home. It was the unobtrusive visitor when I found out I was pregnant, and it was shining like a drop of blue sky when I gave birth. Baby hands have held it, pulled on it, and bitten it. I have changed the chain perhaps seven times, but this time, when the chain broke a week ago, we welded the silver chain back together.

But yesterday, while walking through the same park, near the same place he gave it to me, I looked down and saw the chain: broken, clinging to my neck. I pulled it away, the pendent was gone. I opened my shirt, my pants, I took off my shoes. 

I couldn't find it.

We retraced my steps. We asked others to look. But my piece of the ocean is nowhere to be found. It may as well be in the ocean itself. 

Today, my neck is bare. 

When I talk, I reach up my hand to hold it and it is not there. When I look in the mirror, fully-dressed, I feel naked. Though I never thought I would feel so upset about an item of jewelry (and thought you may be thinking I am being dramatic, perhaps I would have thought the same thing until this happened to me), because the reality is no amount of money can replace that necklace and honestly, a look-alike won't even feel the same.

There is an odd comfort in knowing it is among the grass and earth where we first made a committment to one another. I have thought about it a lot and today I came to these conclusions:

• I would prefer to use something that I value and truly enjoy the item rather than keep it safe, locked away and never risk losing it. 
• Things aren't important because they were expensive, they are important because of the meaning they hold and the value we assign to them.
• The loss of this necklace is the ending of an era. Perhaps I am giving it more weight than I should, but the loss of something so valuable to me can only be soothed through the belief that it represents the end of an era in my life and the beginning of a new one. Only I can truly understand all that these five+ years signify, another mystery I will have to leave unexplained. 
• If a chain breaks, don't weld it. Buy a new one. 

I had envisioned passing this necklace down to my daughter, telling her the story of it and all it went through. But since I cannot do that, I wrote this. And now I can at least know that I said: 

Goodbye, mi pedacito del cielo.