Rilee Lytle

Sometimes, walking this road of life can be exhausting. It can be easy, or it can be hard.
But you’ll see me on the road, walking along. And if you ever meet me in person, one thing that
you will notice is that I always have a necklace on. It’s one necklace, and it never changes. One
necklace that always stays on. One side has a soft yet smooth exterior. The other side has a
rough and bumpy exterior. If you slide your thumb or finger across the cold, bumpy side, you
can get a message. But I’ll tell you that later.

For now, you might be asking, it has to be special if I don’t take it off, right? Yeah, it’s
pretty special.

Before I explain why it’s so unique and special, let me tell you its story and why I have it.
At first, one of my brothers owned it. It was originally a part of a pair of earrings. It was a gift
from a friend to him. Then something occurred. The pendant, the very same pendant I wear,
slipped off one of the earrings. My brother didn’t know what to do. Only one of the pendants fell
off. So he set it on a string and wore it like a necklace.

One day, he came over to visit and placed the necklace on the table. My cats at the time
toyed with it like it was a new toy. My brother was angry because of how special it was to him.
And now it was missing. Though, after he left, my mom found it in the corner of the living room.

She kept it. My mom knew whose it was. But, she never told him that she found it
because of the element of surprise. She did want to tell him but that’s where I came in.

To carry my parents with me everywhere, metaphorically speaking, I wanted a special

necklace or something memorable to wear to remind me of her because I already had
something that reminded me of my dad. So she gave me the pendant. The pendant was small,
a little bigger than a quarter. It had engravings and it was cold. I believed it was some sort of
Asian language because I didn’t want to assume.

I only wore it once in a while and almost always placed it on my nightstand as I would
tuck into bed for the night. But the more I wore it, the more I started to become comfortable with
it. Before this event, I wasn’t used to wearing jewelry. I never quite liked wearing jewelry
because I always thought that I’d lose it once I’d take something off.

A few months went by of me wearing and my mom finally told my brother about the
pendant and how it supposedly went “missing.” He wasn’t mad, surprisingly. He thought it was
awesome that I started wearing it and that I kept it.

After all that, something changed the course of my life. For better or worse, I’ll let you
decide.

My mom was on the brink of death’s door. It was a hard time as I became more sad and
tired like my life was being sucked from my body. The house felt empty. I felt empty.
Rilee Lytle

I had no motivation. Sure, I had my joyful yet sad and hard-working dad but it wasn’t the
same as the love given to me by my mom. Then we got the call. On May 17th, 2022, that call
changed everything.

Now even though she’s gone, I wear the pendant. It’s something that, no matter what,
stays with me forever. It’s like I have a piece of her everywhere I go. Occasionally, I’ll push it to
my chest to make me feel like she’s here with me. Or sometimes I’ll just rub the pendant and
feel the engravings and the textures. It relaxes me.

My mom’s presence is gone from the physical world, there’s no changing that but I still
think about her, and to honor her memory, I wear the pendant. Ever since her passing, I’ve
never taken off for more than 5 minutes. So if you ever meet me, know that you will see the
pendant, even if it’s just dangling there, you’ll see it.