Jean Harned Boyle

For Christmas, when I was around 10-years-old, my aunt gave me, and my sister, silver charm bracelets. To my bracelet she had added a silver horse charm because I was totally obsessed with animals, especially horses.

Over the years I got charms as gifts for birthdays, Christmas and other special occasions. On family camping trips around the country my sister and I spent a great deal of time looking through souvenir shops for the perfect charms to represent each significant location. To these I added charms for the different places I lived, schools I went to, and then, what I thought was my final “growing up” charm, the completion of the bracelet, a Hansom Cab, given to me by my now husband to remind me of our first date in New York City.

Years passed, many years, and I got the biggest surprise of my life – I had a granddaughter! My son had died 20 years earlier at the age of 24. He never knew that he had a daughter and she didn’t know about her biological father until shortly before seeking me out just before her 24th birthday. My son and granddaughter were both born in August so I added the final charm, a beautiful little peridot stone.

My childhood charm bracelet will always be one of my most loved possessions. Today it hangs around the neck of a crow, on my fireplace mantle, where I see it daily and it reminds me of a wonderful childhood.