Over the weekend, I met with a client to make a sentimental locket while her husband and son browsed the store. She sat down at my workbench and first showed me a small bundle of hair tied with a red thread, then a small collection of sea glass and tiny fossils she had found at the lake. We joked a bit about the Great Lakes and how much we love finding glass even though it’s actually old garbage. Then she laid out the third item she brought, a tissue with a spot of deep red on it. Matter-of-factly she said, “And this is blood.”
I’m open to most things when it comes to unconventional items being put in my jewelry, but I have a pretty hard no-bodily-fluids rule when it comes to people sending things to my studio. But on that day, this woman was already there in front of me. The blood was dry and most likely posed no risk to me at all — I knew I could wash my hands — and something in me was telling me to just go for it.
She motioned to her son and said that they were recently in the hospital and he started bleeding. When a drop fell on the floor, she covered it with a tissue to clean it up and then kept it.
I asked if she wanted separate lockets or everything put in the same one, and she said she wanted them in the same one. I asked for permission to snip the ends from the bundle of hair so it could fit with the other items, and if we could choose just one piece of glass or one fossil to nestle in beside it. The blood drop was trimmed into a small circle and pressed into one side of the locket, then the hair was cut down. As I worked she leaned forward and quietly whispered, “He’s terminally ill.”
That broke me. Suddenly the drop of blood made sense. When you know you are going to lose someone, you try to hold onto as much of them as you can. The grief starts before the person is actually gone. There is no way to quantify or explain all of the shades of empathy I felt for her in that moment.
She told me that she chose red thread for the hair bundle because Christmas is his favorite holiday. I imagined her at home with the thread in her hands, standing behind her son as she gently wrapped a section of his short fluffy hair over and over and over before tying the thread, cutting the bundle close to the scalp, knowing that some coming Christmas would be their family’s first without him.
I can’t cry.
The piece of sea glass was nestled next to the hair before I sealed up the locket. As she got ready to leave and her family continued laughing and joking with the other customers and staff it took everything in me not to completely lose it. Her son raised his arm to wave to us from the doorway before they left the store and I made it just a few seconds after the door shut before I burst into tears.
Every piece of jewelry I make for someone is deeply meaningful, but this interaction was profoundly emotional in a way that I just can’t put into words. My heart keeps breaking over and over and I have to keep reminding myself that the pain of grief is simply the feeling of love, but it feels different when it no longer has a place to go. The locket we made together is so much more than blood, hair, string, and glass — it’s every moment and memory she has from her son that she will get to carry with her long after he is physically gone — the happiest of times and the most difficult as well. Being able to give that to her was a blessing.
Here are some photos of what we created together.
I am so grateful for every opportunity to make something special for another person. Being given the ability to create personalized ways for others to remember their beloved family members and friends or cherish a special moment is the thing that will always be the highest honor of my career and the thing I am most proud of in my lifetime. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for trusting me with these incredibly special projects. As always I am available for memorial and sentimental jewelry work.
Sending so much love to whoever needs it right now.