The Necklace

 

This happened sometime in 2002. While I have told the story many times, I did not write it down at the time, so unlike many of my other stories, I don’t have the exact date.

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When my first born was a toddler, we would often go thrift store shopping together. I had opened an eBay store in 2001 and specialized in vintage toys, so my son enjoyed helping me hunt for treasure. We had such fun together. In later years, his little sister would join us and the three of us would have a wonderful time. All these years later, I often feel nostalgia for those days when I go into that particular thrift store.

Back then, I had already begun practicing listening to my intuition. I had received too many difficult life lessons all those times I ignored that little voice in my head. Listening was reinforced at this time in my life because I would often get a little nudge to go to a particular store on a particular day and would come away with some unique find for my son or for my on-line store.

On this day, I had such a nudge but I was also feeling rather depressed. I was having a period of grief over missing my dad, and all of my friends lived out of town. I was lonely and felt especially sad that he would never get to spend time with my children.

I decided to go ahead and go to our favorite store anyway. So, we packed up our toddler gear and headed the 25 minute drive north. My son and I went through all of the many toy bags and the enormous toy aisle but didn’t find anything at all. This both confused me because it seemed as if my intuitive nudge was wrong and it added to my already sad state. We picked out a Hot Wheel car for my son to add to his collection and made our way to the checkout area.

The line at the jewelry counter was the shortest, so we got in that one. When it was our turn to pay, I happened to glance down and saw a necklace that appeared to have my initials monogrammed on it. I asked the clerk if I could see it. I was so surprised when she brought it out of the case. Sure enough, there were my initials. A feeling of warmth flooded my body and I felt as though this was a gift from my dad. The pendant of the necklace looked almost as if it might be a locket. As I turned it over to take a closer look, my heart sank. My immediate thought was, “who would put a penny in a necklace?” as the back of the necklace did indeed have a penny in it. I was disappointed because I thought that it ruined the aesthetic beauty of the piece, but then I looked closer and saw that the penny was from my birth year! I knew then, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this really was a gift from my dad. Plus, the necklace was even silver which somehow made it all seem even more magical because while it would have seemed to be a spectacular coincidence if it were gold, I don’t wear gold jewelry.

This was the first and possibly the most impressive example of “pennies from heaven” from my dad, and I’m just so grateful for the reminder that we are never alone and that magical happenings might just be right around the corner.