Share a photo of something old. Maybe something that has personal history for you, that was passed down to you, and that has special meaning to you. Tell us about it & why it's special.

A tiara fit for a princess, and a crown made for a queen.

My nanny was born in 1932. She was always very beautiful and very popular, and sometime in 1940, her beauty and her grace won her the title of "Queen" at her prom. I was born in 1988. I was her first grandbaby and the most beautiful baby she'd ever seen, so she said, and at first sight, my cherub cheeks and joyful giggles won her heart. Before we lost her, she gave me her prom queen crown. I was helping her clean through a few of her dresser drawers and she found the crown sitting in one of them. She stared at it for quite sometime, and then turned to me. Securing it in place, she said "for my beauty queen" and kissed my forehead.

This was one of my nanny's most treasured possessions, and she gave it to me. At 18, she was a beauty queen, and at 66, she was my beauty queen as I was hers. In each others eyes, we were perfect, we could do no wrong. On days when I'm feeling particularly down, I like to see myself through my nanny's eyes, with a crown fit for queen atop my head.

In 2006, I attended my senior prom in a gorgeous floor-length dress and my very first pair of Jimmy Choo strappy heels. I didn't win prom queen that night, far from it. But I had brought my most prized possession, my own crown (and with it my nana's presence), that night and felt like a beauty queen anyway. And if I ever get married, this crown will be my something old, because I could never embark on something new without it.
   
Thank you all so much for reading along for this month of Blogtember. It's been wonderful giving you bits and pieces of myself daily and getting to know some of you through your posts. I hope you stick around a bit longer - I've still got plenty more to say :)

Don't You Forget About Me

Today's topic: "A story about a time you were very afraid."

This post has nothing to do with The Breakfast Club (my favorite movie by the way), but the outro, hit song "Don't You (Forget About Me)" by Simple Minds is quite fitting. Do any of you 80's kids remember it?
Photo Credit; Edited by me. 

Today marks the second day in a row during Blogtember that we're going to look back to my ninth year of life. Apparently, a hell of a lot happened to 9 year-old Kari. I was mean and forgettable. 

I don't remember many of the details but that's actually consistent with how I remember things that I am or once was afraid of. I kind of block them out and when I pull on those memories, only certain tethers return, like feelings or settings. My grandmother, whom I called Nanny, was diagnosed with lung cancer when I was a child and she progressively got worse over time. Because her condition was worsening, they (my parents, aunts and uncles) wanted me to spend as much time as possible with her, just in case. I was going to go visit her at her house when my mother tried to explain that Nanny was a bit different from the last time I had seen her. When I asked how, she said that I could go in to see her but that she might not remember me because she had forgotten a lot of things lately. Little did I know that just earlier Nanny didn't even remember her own children, but to my 9 year-old ears, my mother had essentially said "you're grandma has forgotten you." My mother lead me to the hallway that lead to Nanny's bedroom but I would barely budge. I stood with my arms stiffly by my side and took tiny little steps in their direction. My family has told me this story quite a few times since then, about how I was moving so slowly that it would've taken me an hour to enter the room, but I only really remember how I felt. I feared of the possibility that Nana wouldn't know who I was, that her blue eyes would pass over my face without recognition. They say it took them 5 minutes of calling me to get me move an inch and that eventually, my uncle just carried me into the room with my face buried in his chest. But I just remember feeling so very afraid that I had already been forgotten. 

Now that I think about it, this story was a precursor of sorts for my life. If I care to admit it to myself, being forgotten is one of twenty-five year-old Kari biggest fears as well.