[ ip ] rusted jewelry hung at cemetery

Although it always brought up painful emotions, Jennie loved walking past the cemetery on her way home from school. The painful emotions were a small price to pay for all of the wonderful memories that would come flooding back as she approached the reddish colored gravestone that marked her mother ’ s final resting place. 
 
 Jennie could still barely believe that her mother wasn ’ t with her anymore. She hated knowing that her mother was never going to see her graduate from high school or be there for advice when she got her heart broken by some boy. At the same time, she felt grateful that her mother was no longer in pain. She knew, despite the strong front that she put on, that her mother was in constant agony as the cancer ate away at her body. Her mother never once let it eat away her spirit though, she maintained a constant smile and strong front. 
 
 Something felt different to Jennie that day as she turned the corner a couple blocks away from the cemetery. Maybe it was because it was her birthday that she was feeling odd, her first one without her mom waking her up with her favorite blueberry pancakes. She slowed her strides as she made her way down the sidewalk as the memory of the day that her mother had found relief and passed from this world. Jennie was alone in the room with her mother. They were sharing some of their favorite memories when suddenly her mother grew quiet and still. Jennie grew scared at the sudden silence that seemed to go on for hours when it was more like a handful of seconds. With a slight shake of her head her mother snapped out of the short spell and mustered up the strength to roll onto her side and reach over to get her favorite possession from her nightstand. When she rolled back over she looked at Jennie with the most heartbreaking look of love in her eyes while she clutched Jennie ’ s grandmother ’ s last gift to her breast. Moments later Jennie ’ s mother closed her eyes for the last time and she slipped away. 
 
 Jennie was so lost in the memory that she didn ’ t realize that she was right near her mother ’ s resting place. When she slipped back to her present reality she stopped dead in her tracks, she was frozen solid and couldn ’ t have moved if she had tried. It was impossible to be seeing what she was seeing. Despite the rust and discoloring, there was, absolutely, no doubt that the tangled mess of necklaces hanging from the fence was the same ones that her mother had been clutching as she passed away. Jennie had always been told that they had been passed down for more than four generations of her grandmothers until they became her mother ’ s. Jennie knew that she was supposed to be the next owner of the heirlooms, but on the day of her mother ’ s funeral Jennie knew that they were meant to be with her mother. Jennie had placed them between her mother ’ s hands where they were folded on her breast and that was where they had stayed until the coffin lid was closed and the dirt piled on top. 

