From JuJu with Love

Years ago, my parents traveled to Mexico — I think Acapulco — and my dad bought my mom a spectacular ring. It was big and sparkly, filled with rubies and diamonds. Beautiful… but honestly, not really my mom’s everyday style.

So later, when my sisters and I were young adults, she did something very much in character for her. Instead of letting the ring sit in a jewelry box, she had it redesigned into three pieces — one for each daughter.

Margo received a ring.

Katie received a pendant.

And I received earrings.

Life, however, has its own plans. Margo’s ring was lost in a robbery while she was living in San Francisco. Katie’s pendant slipped off a broken chain and disappeared one day while she was wearing it. And just like that, the pieces were gone.

Except mine.

Years later, I realized I rarely wore the earrings anymore. And it didn’t feel right for the last remaining piece of that ring to sit unused. So I had them redesigned again — this time into two pendants.

And I gave them to my nieces.

The jewelry my parents bought decades earlier had now made its way to the next generation.

There’s a Hebrew phrase: l’dor v’dor — from generation to generation.

I worried a little that I didn’t have something meaningful to pass along to my nephew Ben. And then I remembered.

In the late 1980s, when I was living in Washington, D.C., my dad gave me a Cartier watch he’d bought for himself in Switzerland. When he later bought a new watch, he passed his along to me. I wore it almost every day for years.

Now it sits in a safety deposit box while I wear my Apple Watch like everyone else. But someday soon, I’ll have it refurbished, polished back to life, and pass it on.

To Ben.

So pieces of my parents’ lives — a ring from Mexico, a watch from Switzerland — are now finding their way to the third generation.

Jewelry changes shape. Watches get updated. Styles change.

But the love behind them travels on.

As my dad now jokes, “I must have been very drunk in Acapulco to buy that ring — but I’m glad it was broken down and passed on.

L’dor v’dor.

From Juju with love 💙