NECKLACE AND WEDDING RING

 It is a beautiful Wednesday here in Fresno, California.  The sun is out and all this tends to make me happy.  I think about Jeannette and wonder if she is with my dear mother in Heaven.


When I was growing up, my mother had a ring she never took off.  It was the only ring I ever saw her wear.  She wore is when she swept, when she mopped, when she made her large mound of golden flour tortillas, when she sewed buttons on my dad's shirts and when she washed clothes on the rubboard. 


She didn't really have any other jewelry. The years passed.  Mama toiled around at home keeping it clean and my dad worked long hours in the cotton fields of Corcoran, California.  Eventually, when I turned 12 years of age, I started making tortillas for the whole family and helped my mother around the house but my dad never had help working out in the fields.  He never complained. 


After my mother died in 2009, my father gave to me the ring that mom wore all her life.  It was her wedding ring.  The ring she cherished so much is now wrapped in a soft cloth and tucked away in a beautiful tiny box and hidden in my bedroom.  I cherish it too.  I also cherish times spent in Corcoran with my dad.  He is alone now and does not have to work out in the fields anymore.  Lives on his Social Security and is in good health, thanks to God. 


Jeannette had a necklace she cherished and almost at the end of her life, she gave it to me. 


It is wrapped in a soft cloth along with my mom's ring in a beautiful tiny box and hidden away. 


Missing my Jeannette and my dear mama.  Someday, I will see them again.  Someday, I too will leave the necklace and wedding ring to my daughter Diana.