The day my great-grandma had passed was very hard for my family to digest. She didn’t pass because of cancer, sickness, or anything like that. She just simply passed because her time in this world had simply come to an end.

We were at my great-grandmother’s house cleaning it out so that we could get ready to sell it. We were packing clothes, antiques, collectibles, and much more into boxes. We planned on auctioning off all of these things to the local people. At least the things that held great value. My mother said that we couldn’t have them because we had no more to keep them, and if we would’ve kept them, then they would’ve just collected dust.

Now me, I haven’t even reached my teenage years yet. I hardly really even knew my great-grandmother. So I didn’t get a full impact on how much it could’ve hurt me if I would’ve gotten to know her. My mother would always get these sudden outbreaks just from packing things up that brought back memories.

While I was helping my mother pack, I found a key underneath my great-grandmother’s bed. It was a small key. I ran to my mother to show it to her. “Momma, Momma. Look at what I found underneath gamma’s bed.”

“Ooh. Well will you look at that, a key. What does it go to darling?”

“I don’t know momma.”

“Well, why don’t you go look for what it goes to while me and your father keeps packing things up for the auction,” she said as she was folding up clothes.

“Okay mommy.” I ran back to my great-grandmother’s bedroom in search of what this key might go to. My mother hadn’t yet been in this room to pack anything, so I still had a lot of things to search through and move around. I searched in the most radical places. I wasn’t sure where I should’ve searched exactly. I mean, I was only 7 years old. I didn’t even know what I was looking for. If I had known what I was looking for, then perhaps it’d be easier to search for because then I would’ve actually have had some idea of where I should’ve been looking.

I looked underneath the mattress, nothing there. I looked in her night stand drawers for it, still nothing. I looked on her desk and nothing with a key hole lied on her desk. I went to her closets and searched in there. I was tossing clothes over my shoulders in search for this mysterious item. I looked and looked until all the clothes that were in her closet were no longer in there, but on the ground rather. And yet, I found absolutely nothing. “I’m never going to find anything that this key will fit into.” I sighed. I was a little let down. Was I ever going to find this mysterious thing? I thought that maybe perhaps it wasn’t it my great-grandmother’s bedroom but instead some other room. Maybe mother had even packed it already without even noticing.

I got up, ready to go search in a different place in a different room. But then, that’s when I noticed something on top of the closet just sitting atop the shelf. Of course it was too high for me to reach, so I ran out of the bedroom to go grab one of the kitchen chairs that was in the dinning room. I came back and climbed on top of the chair and reached as high up as I could to obtain the item. I grab it as tightly as I could, making sure not to drop it. I climb off of the chair and jump onto the bed. It was a box I found. This box was sealed. I went to go find my father. He had a box opener with him just incase it might’ve came in handy. “Daddy, Daddy.”

“Whaty, Whaty.”

“I need you to open up a box I found in gamma’s room.”

“Okay come on kiddo.”

I raced to the bedroom excited to see what exactly could be in that box. My father grabbed his box opening knife out of his pocket and sliced open the box. “There you are Princess. I gotta run back outside to help your mother load the furniture into the back of the truck. And be sure you put that chair back right where you had found it.”

“Okay daddy,” I hollered back to him as he was running out of the house to go assist my mother. I lifted up the flaps that were attached to the box, and inside lied something pink. I put my hands inside and took the continents out of the box. I wasn’t quite sure what it was, but it looked like it could be opened. So I tried to open it, but I couldn’t get it open. And that’s when I noticed that there was a key hole. I was hoping that the key I had found would fit into this key hole.

I took the key out from my pants pocket and slid it inside the key hole. So far it fit. I turned the key and I hear it click. “It must be unlocked now,” I thought to myself. I opened up the cubed shape item. Once I had opened it, a song that I now recognize as Lieder Ohne Worte. I saw a ballerina inside. It was positioned into a pirouette. There were compartments sectioned off inside with rings, necklaces, bracelets, and much more inside. I wasn’t quite sure exactly what this thing was. I’ve never seen anything like it before.

I grabbed the item, shut it, and ran outside to where my mother was. “Mommy, I found what the key went to, but I don’t know what it is. Look.”

“Oh, wow darling. This is called a jewelry box.”

“No it’s not because mine ain’t got music or a little girl inside it.”

“That’s because this one is a musical jewelry box my dear,” my mother said as she smiled at it.

“Well I want one too,” I pouted as I crossed my arms and stomped my foot on the ground.

“Okay darling, I’ll see to get you one for your birthday. But this jewelry box has some very expensive jewelry inside it dear. I think I might take it into the auction.”

“No Mommy. That isn’t fair. I found it first, so I get it all.”

“Here, lets make a deal, I’ll let you keep one thing of your choice from the jewelry box okay?”

“Okay.” I snatched the jewelry box from her and ran back inside the house so that I could decide what I would want to keep. I searched through the many necklaces, bracelets, anklets, rings, earrings, etc. looking for something that caught my eye. That’s when I found a necklace with a heart shaped charm attached to the end of it. I lifted it up out of the box to get a closer look at it. I ran outside and told my mother that this is the one I wanted.

“You want the locket?”

“The what Mommy?”

“The locket. All you do is take the heart and opened it up. She grabbed it from my hands and opened it up. And I saw her eyes start to water. She said that she was happy that I had chosen this one.

She handed me the locket and I opened it looking inside. In it was to tiny heart shaped photographs. One of my great-grandmother and the other of a person of who I could not identify. “Mommy, who is that little girl in the picture?”

“Why that’s me,” she said as her voice was breaking out. She put the necklace around my neck and linked the two ends of the chain together. “Make sure you keep this with you forever honey, and you will always have your great-grandmother and me by your side.”