nico

paperweight + necklace

My grandma was very upfront about dying. She started talking about how she was making her will around the time that her cancer came back and she was very open at family dinners and birthdays and stuff, but it was like a week or two, or maybe a month before she passed away—before the last time i saw her—she was like, “I want you and your sister to come to San Pedro and come and pick out one necklace one paperweight and one teapot each,” because she collected paper weights and teapots and had a lot of necklaces too.

And so we got there and I kinda already knew the things I wanted to pick out like for the paperweight and the necklace, and I was kinda caught between not wanting it to seem like I knew already and acting like I was just browsing. Especially with my sister there was this competitive nature so I remember quickly raiding through the jewelry drawer that she had, and seeing this necklace and immediately grabbing it even though I knew my sister also wanted it a little bit because she was bummed out when I grabbed it first, and she grabbed another amber necklace that was a heart. But this necklace is the one that I remember my grandma wearing the most and the one I remember wanting to look at the most, like the one I wanted to feel when she was wearing it, and my grandma always wore very coordinated stuff.

And then I was searching for this specific paperweight, and this was another thing where like my sister and weren’t fighting over it but kind of were. I remember my sister got this one that we both also had a clear memory of, but i chose this paperweight because I love the memories attached to it that are my own separate from my sister. So I needed to grab this one specifically, and then I just kind of was looking around the teapots.

It was a really weird experience. It was like being in a museum and the owner being like “pick out three things that are invaluable and go home with them.” I definitely cried and it was good that my grandma did that because my dad and uncles didn't let us into the house after she passed and just cleared everything out. She donated the rest of her collections to the church so they could auction it and raise money for whatever they were doing.

So it’s weird because it doesn’t have that sense of sentimentality of being given it or like finding it like after the person passed, but this weird collecting of it while this living ghost was still there and still talking and still being like “I’m close to death but I want you to experience this and choose your memory of me.”

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