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The Perfect Pear

Sometimes You Have to Branch Out

By DeEtta MillerPublished 3 years ago 3 min read
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It had to be done. It’s not as if he is the first boyfriend to “bite the dust.” But he was the best…

How could he not understand? It’s college. I have been groomed for this moment, all my life. My parents have been packing the car for over an hour, and I have to be up North for orientation by this evening.

I sort through my jewelry, and as if charged by electricity, I shiver while handling his offerings. None of the beautiful babuls given were expensive. I wouldn’t want him spending his tuition money on trinkets that would linger at the bottom of my jewelry box. But they were all symbols of a love we were nurtured, over the course of the summer. Everything had a meaning. I don’t know if I was more enamored by the sparkle of the ornamentation, or the sparkle of his shopping stories. It always sounded like he drew every salesperson into his love story, and they eagerly helped select the object best suited for me.

Eventually I finished a weeklong sprint purging “stuff” from my bedroom. Leaving my jewelry box for last seemed a perfect farewell. Little sister Peggy was excited to inherit all the plastic jewelry from my youth. Any valuable jewelry was going into my mother’s dresser drawer for safe keeping. Bling just seems bourgeois while hiking across campus in casual, worn-out second-hand jeans.

Setting down the empty coffee cup by my feet, a little glint reaches up and catches my eye. Partially covered in dirty clothing I was leaving behind, is the piece-de-resistance of my fashion statements. Gently I pull the delicate charm bracelet up off the floor and rest it on my knee. I haven’t worn this piece since I told him I was leaving. It was my favorite! He said the sales team cheered after he shared our love story. It was wrapped in some of the most delicate and beautiful wrapping paper I have ever seem.

Clasping it onto my bare wrist, brings tears and sobs I had pushed deep down. I thought I could do this! Jeeze, it was only six months! Doesn’t it take years to fall in love? I was going to be the strong one. After several tearful conversations about the future and what might and might not happen, I assured him I would return. I told myself education is far more important than a future with a gentle, kind, and tender man. Love comes and goes. But education can last a lifetime! Un-like love, education can get you the type of security that can last a lifetime. At least that’s what mom and dad always said.

Turning the attached little gold charm over and over between my thumb and finger, pulls me into a trance that is filled with happy and tender moments spent at his side. Holding it up to the light, I can see the inscription above an image. The charm is a small pear tree with two pears side by side. Below it reads “We are the perfect pear.”

I can’t do it! I can’t leave him! It’s not too late. I can drop out of the distant college and re-apply here, with him. I know my parents will be so disappointed, but they’ll just have to love me more than they love their dream for me.

How time flies. It was twenty years ago, I rushed to the car to announce I was staying home. Staying with him. So many tears. While mentally shifting my plans and standing my ground that day in my room, a better plan was in the works. When I went out to confront my parents and un-load the car, I was startled to see him in the back seat, waiting for me. With the help of my parents, he was able to get accepted and register at the same school, for the same session.

After I clasp the pear-tree charm bracelet to the wrist of our lovely college bound daughter, I whisper into her father’s ear, “We are the perfect pear…”

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About the Creator

DeEtta Miller

Found my "Voice" as a college student of forty-seven. Once a memoir was written, fiction, poetry and non-fiction became my passions.

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