I love the symbolism and images of circles, so when I found this necklace full of circles, (at a bargain price, which made me even happier) I scooped it up.
One day when I was savoring the feeling of fiddling with the loops around my neck, my daughter sat on my lap to join me in playing with the necklace of circles.
She was at an age when it was routine to label things to represent family members, to notice ascending and descending sizes and correlate them to each of us. So, my necklace was bound to become our family of circles.
As she fanned out the circles, she began, “This one is Daddy, this one is Ali, this one is Michael and this one is me,” she paused for just a second, there are only four silver rings but five in our family. Then she touched the tiny one and announced, “And this is you, Mommy!”
Even though this was only a child’s musings, the usual assigning the family to objects, I had a moment of pause. A moment with a wisp of a sinking feeling that I was viewed as small in her eyes. But before I could register theses thoughts or give a name to my emotion, she continued.
“Mommy, you’re the little one because you hold us all together.”
