A Pearl Poem

By now you know I love pearls. I've blogged about pearls here. And here.

This year my Mom gave us a very special gift for our anniversary:  A poem she wrote along with a glass bottle filled with rocks and a bag of pearls tied to it. The rocks in the bottle represent God, the foundation of our marriage. The pearls represent the treasure we have found in each other through our marriage. The poem tells us that each year on our anniversary we are to take a pearl from the bag and place it in the bottle, saying "Happy Anniversary, I love you dear!" The pearls will represent the years that we share together and help us remember all of the memories we've made.

She explains in the poem that pearls are:

• A hard object, derived from a living creature
• An object of beauty, the oldest of gems
• Considered to be very fine and rare
• A symbol of purity and innocence

 She concludes the poem saying: "May you have hardness and strength to stay life's strong storms, yet never forgetting to keep the beating heart soft and warm. Your years clearly seen through the bottle of glass, pearls holding your secrets of an intimate love unsurpassed."

This is such a neat gift! It will be so much fun to put a pearl in the bottle each year on our anniversary. I look at the bottle every day and see the one little pearl in it. I'm sure before I know it, though, the one pearl will become five, then twenty, then fifty!

The pearl among the rocks.

The rock and pearl bottle and framed poem are hanging on the wall in our bedroom so we see it every day! The heart hanging below the shelf is also from my Mom. She gave this to me as part of my wedding gift, along with a very touching letter and poem from her to me. My Mom is great!