I have the year’s ugliest birthstone. Emerald, ruby, garnet, and topaz are deep and exotic. Amethyst and aquamarine are eye-catching and pastel. Diamond speaks for itself and sapphire is my favorite. And then there’s peridot. Sad, weak, uninteresting peridot looking sickly in comparison. Too much tint for clarity and not enough color f
or beauty. Not to mention it seems peridot is always set in yellow gold so it ends up looking like some lame lemon-lime concoction. The only compensation for having a crappy birthstone is that at least my grandma also had an August birthday and shared my pain. And her jewelry. When I turned eight at her house in Tennessee, she gifted me a peridot pendant my grandfather had given her long ago, and 
for once the pale green stone had value. When I promptly lost it, my grandmother found it, kept it, and gave it to me again when I turned sixteen. I wore it to my graduation and I felt a special connection to my grandmother. Besides sharing our birth month and stone, my grandma and I had other special things in common. I got my love of crocheting from her. She let me use her feather pen if I promised to sit nicely. She taught me “Froggy Went A Courtin’” and the importance of polished toenails. The little kitty in Franz Brandenberg’s A Secret For Grandmother’s Birthday wants to find just the right gift for her grandma. I truly wish I still had to do that.http://www.librarything.com/work/1858464
http://www.bookfinder.com/author/franz-brandenberg/
No comments:
Post a Comment