The bracelet I have admired since childhood, worn by my maternal grandmother, existed in the my earliest memories and it appears in sharp focus today.

As I hold it I am forced into a conversation with the past. I am no longer allowed to just listen at the door.

This bracelet was a gift from my grandfather to my grandmother. It was a token from their trips to Italy in the 1940’s. It is a fine piece of jewelry by any standard, crafted of luminous 22 kt Italian gold.

Their many trips to escape the maudlin of America in the 1940s filled my grandmother’s dresser with jewelry of every description, yet this bracelet captured my fascination like no other.

Crafted by local hands using chips of precious stones, each of the 7 links in the bracelet tells a story from link to link This Italian art form began in the 1600s and continued into the 1950s. My grandmother’s example dates to 1875, not so old in 1940.

No doubt the message in it’s links was the attraction.

These stones were scraps and pieces discarded by artists chosen to inlay fine furniture, walls, floors, chariots and the like with precious stones. A market arose for the leftovers. What was once useless bits and pieces became much sought after.

In this bracelet, the stones are pressed tightly together without the benefit of prongs or glue, each a product of nature with each stone casting light and shadow into a portrait of the Italian hillside. The central link features the Temple of Venus rendered in rare, white Italian marble surrounded by a black onyx sky and opal stars. All this achieved by the pressure setting of stones no larger than the head of a pin. These stones have no value until they are placed with the others, each piece of scrap now an integral part of what holds them all in place. Each link is crafted with hundreds of these bits of stone--emerald, ruby, onyx, opal, sapphire--that form a paint box of nature’s most treasured gems. The stones are so tightly fit you can just barely feel the slight sharp edge or two as you run a finger tip over each flat surface.

The loss of one fragment would result in the loss of many. What is left behind would be much weaker and subject to damage.

This bracelet retains the story of my grandmother and grandfather. I was not born until after his death so all I know of him are photos of seersucker suits, white shirts and straw hats. I know he is the reason my lineage goes as far back in America as possible. I am thankful to him for that.

I am also thankful for the lesson of this bracelet. It allows me to remember her, think of him, of their lives ,of the lessons they left for me in their belongings..