23/10/2023
I made a wish //
And I don’t think I’ll ever know if it came true.
A year ago yesterday, I photographed the wedding of Emma & Adam (happy anniversary to you both!). Afterwards, in the post I received a beautiful thank you card with this ‘make a wish’ bracelet. It was a much brighter green when it was new, and I kept it a little while before putting it on.
Then in late December, I was meeting up with my friend Andrea to do the Christmas gift swap coffee date. I saw the bracelet on my way out the door and decided I was ready to make my wish and grabbed it to take with me.
She tied it on for me as we chatted and caught up on each other’s news.
If you’ve not seen them before, you tie the string in a knot, and keep the bracelet on until it snaps and falls off by itself. And that’s when the wish comes true.
Over this year the green string has faded and became frayed, the silver heart peeled and is now white. And this morning as I was watering my houseplants, the knot just gently fell apart. I thought to myself, I’m glad I saw it break, and I didn’t lose it on a dog walk or something. And then I cried.
I cried for the wish I’d made. And I cried because Andrea isn’t here for me to give the ‘news’ about the bracelet. I took the photo and I sent to a couple of friends before I wrote this. One person, a new friend who’d been close to Andrea too, told me a couple of weeks ago that if I ever find myself wanting to send a picture, or silly reel or message to Andrea, that I could send it to her instead and we’d talk about how she’d have laughed or found it interesting. So I did that today and it felt right.
And I don’t think I’ll ever know for sure if my wish came true, because it was for someone else. But that doesn’t really matter. I’ll keep this snapped bit of string and plastic heart, and I’ll think about the chat I had as it was tied on 💚
