Upon my recent relocation, I donated half my furniture, but my son encouraged me to keep the old cedar chest. I opened it at my new apartment and fingered through small items in the top tray. When I discovered my old charm bracelet, I decided to move it to my jewelry box. It needed cleaning and was a dated version of today’s charm bracelets, but the charms were still special to me. I closed the cedar chest and placed trays of my beautiful blooming violets on it in front of the bedroom window.
Since becoming a widow, I have treated myself to a nice dinner each year on my birthday. I decided to have lunch at O’Neill’s in a nearby town to check it out. The potato and leek soup was tasty, so I asked to view the dinner menu while I stayed for coffee.
As I glanced around the dining room, I noticed a man with faded red hair staring at me. When our eyes met, he smiled and walked over to my table. His first words surprised me. “You look very familiar. I’m from Atlanta originally. Maybe you lived there at some point in the past?” A little surprised that I would meet someone from home since I moved to another state, I responded, “Why, yes. Atlanta is my hometown.”
I asked him to join me, and we spent the next fifteen minutes trying to figure out how our paths had crossed back home. Just as I lifted my coffee cup for the last sip, he glanced at the charm bracelet on my wrist. His eyes widened as he exclaimed, “Now I know who you are. I gave you that tiny ring charm from my mother’s bracelet. You were my first girlfriend. Remember kindergarten? 1953?”
“No way! Paddy? Is it really you?”
I did not want this conversation to end. “Are you free to join me tonight for a special dinner here?”
“Sure. What’s the occasion?”
With a demure smile as I glanced into his Irish green eyes, “It’s the sixtieth anniversary of my fifth birthday, Paddy.”
© 2020 princess2ears
princess2ears 