MY FATHER … MY GRANDDAUGHTER … MY FRIEND … AND A PIN

A month ago, my 16-year-old granddaughter Maddie told me she’d been asked to write an essay focusing on why she should be inducted into the National Honor Society of Portsmouth (NH) High School. She apparently had the grades, character, leadership and service but NHS wanted prospective members to describe their personal ambitions.

“I’ll tweak it for you, if you’d like,” I said, confidently assuming that my decades of writing for newspapers and magazines would be helpful, if not downright necessary.

“Nope, Grandma, if I’m going to join NHS, this essay has to be in my words, no one else’s,” she said. I loved that she dared to be vulnerable!

Early this week Maddie called. She got in! (First dip into the Kleenex box.) When she told me the induction ceremony was Wednesday night, I immediately thought back to 1959 when I had been inducted into NHS as a junior at Central High School in Pennington, New Jersey. That day, my dad, who’d also been a member at his Chicago suburb high school in the ‘30s, had given me his NHS pin attached to a gold charm bracelet.

For years, I kept both those pins and my Girl Scout trefoil in a velvet box stashed deep in my sock drawer. But somehow dad’s disappeared. I rued having taken it off my charm bracelet.

What could I do with my NHS pin for Maddie? I didn’t think she needed it on a bracelet because she favors those stringy things with beads that she makes by the hour and wears until they are shreds. I was stymied. So I called the most creative person I know: Kingsley Gallup, editor/publisher of TOURIST & TOWN.  “Can you help me?” I begged. 

Did she ever!

Kingsley sent me to Michaels Craft Store to look for a miniature shadow box. “Look for little things to decorate it, too,” she said. When I told the salesgirl I needed a small box for the pin, I added, “This pin was mine but I’m giving it to my granddaughter,” she said, “OMG, I just got a chill. Let me call my manager.” The manager came over, I repeated my words, and she said, “OMG, I JUST GOT THE CHILLS!” But let me assure you: it was a very warm moment.

Kingsley worked her magic. The simple little wooden box was transformed into a teal-colored keepsake with my pin visible through the glass top. I added miniatures of Maddie’s interests — basketball, cooking, painting, volleyball — into the teeny-tiny drawer. A big rhinestone M was glued to the bottom. The box was Maddie personified!  

For the induction ceremony, Maddie wore a darling dress and her signature high-top sneakers. (I noted that almost every other girl that night sported various styles of kicks. Doesn’t anyone wear cute little Capezios any more?) When her name was read, I ransacked the Kleenex box. 

Maddie texted the next day. “I can’t even put into words how much this means to me. You are the kindest and most thoughtful grandma ever.”

The Kleenex box is now completely empty.