Mom-Mom

Before my grandmother passed, she gave my mother an angel pin and said that she wanted me to wear it. Mom-Mom was not the warm-hearted, cookie making, non-judgemental stereotypical grandma. She had a hard life and was bitter and cantankerous. I always felt like she didn't approve of me. I didn't have the right friends, I weighed too much, and was still single. In fact, there was a little jealousy and hurt that before her death, she gave a beautiful heart-shaped pendant to her daughter-in-law's sister's daughter rather than to me, her only granddaughter. Still, she thought of me with that angel so I wore it on my bra strap to honor her because I knew she loved me in her own way.

Shortly after her death, I met a man. He was very upfront from the very beginning that he was falling in love with me but having been burned in the past, I had my doubts. One afternoon, he was visiting my apartment. When he left, I noticed my angel was missing. I called him up in a panic asking him if he had seen it. He looked around his car and finally found it stuck to the bottom of his shoe. To to this day, I believe it was a sign that Mom-Mom was telling me, "I approve." We will be married 20 years next month.