Whenever I get dressed up, I open the velvet box, slip on the ring, and clip the necklace. This set was a gift to me for my 16th birthday, though I’d been obsessed with it long before that. I'd seen it while looking through my mom’s nice jewelry as a little girl, opening the little box and instantly becoming obsessed with the way the light hit the stone and turned different colors.
Long before me, it had been given to my mother by my grandmother. She had worn it for years herself. The opal stone is meaningful to me because of my great-grandmother Opal, whom I was given my middle name after. It’s not only meaningful to me. My mother cares deeply about the set as it reminds her of her grandma, and since she was born in October, Opal is her birthstone.
My mother wore this necklace and ring as a teenager; she also attended the same high school that I do now. Wearing these pieces of jewelry reminds me I'm not the first one to walk these halls and make mistakes. It means a lot to me that 35 years ago, someone was standing right where I am, wearing the same ring and necklace I am, feeling and going through the same things I am.

– ES

Relationship:  Great-grandchild of im/migrant or more Great-grandchild of im/migrant or more