The Silver Locket

For those who must be remembered.

🕯️🤍🕊️

The locket.  A small, plain heart framed by a nondescript,unpolished rim. The tarnished silver had dulled to the point of almost-disappearance; it was still part of Raine’s psyche.

It had belonged to Raine’s grandmother, and her grandmother’s mother. The wear and tear of decades of family misgivings had relegated it to a locked drawer.

But it had been once worn, and loved.

The unsterling silver had accompanied grandma through months of  waiting for grandpa, who never came home after visiting Aunt Lily. It had borne months of freezing darkness and obscure shadows for the family.

Undiscarded, it remained.

The ladies – great-grandma, grandma, and mum, had polished the silver pendant till its gleam radiated as much as the sunlight streaming through the window. They held it dear, refusing to discard it even when the children, kudos for their piety, offered to purchase another lined with gold and pearls.

Decades passed – the locket stayed in the family, case intact.

Mum kept it in her jewellery box- for Raine to keep.

Recall.

To look after and guard, as she should.

Like all things that should be remembered, it remains.

🕯️🤍🕊️

Original microfiction for International Holocaust Remembrance Day by Michelle Liew Tsui-Lin. AI tags are coincidental.

Original poem by Michelle Liew Tsui-Lin. AI tags are coincidental.

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