The Pendant

If ever there was one event that I could positively reflect upon as the basis for my current person, I would look no further than my parents’ decision to move from California to Texas. Ever since that fateful day, nearly thirteen years ago now, I have been separated from my father’s family like a stranded foreign exchange student. The distance between us was not necessarily the insurmountable hurdle other authors might claim it to be, but rather when life gets in the way, even a couple of miles can be a burden to travel.

But geography was sadly not the only barrier that prevented me from forming anything more than scant memories of these phantoms from my history. My father’s mother died when I was only eight, which left me with only select vignettes from my time with her. My grandfather was cursed with an insuperable smoking habit, something that was hard for me to tolerate with my asthma, even if all I was breathing in was the stench.

From my experience, it’s only natural for a young and impressionable girl to want to bond with her elder relatives, but immutable circumstances had thwarted my plans. And so from very early on I unconsciously began to look to others for a sense of protection and family. Others may call it fate that I was, from the beginning, very close to my great aunt and uncle, but I tend to look at it more as circumstance. There was a void left somewhere in my heart, and they were just the people to fill it.

Even in my early years, I had taken to Dan and Jane as a lost chick would to its guardian. Their open and friendly manner quickly made them two of my favorite relatives, and I was always thrilled to spend time with them in their forested house in the rolling woods of northern Arkansas. Many a summer, fall break, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and spring break was spent at their home, playing with the model trains downstairs, or simply passing time together around the dinner table. When you spend that much time with people, it invariably leads to anecdotes of times long past. These visits were no different. I can picture them clearly to this day; Jane, in one of her vibrantly colored blouses, her lipstick red enough to glow slightly, and Dan in his golf shirt, sitting at opposite ends of the table, leading the conversation with stories whose timeframe spanned half a century.

There are so many of these tales it would be impossible for me to remember them all, much less to think of how many pages would be filled with their contents if I could. However the one story that was probably imparted more times than any other dealt with the manner of their meeting.

As much as this does discredit to my memory, I have to admit to you that most of the particulars of this story have escaped my mind. Where they’ve gone I don’t know, but what I can recall are the basics, which I would have to be deemed senile before I forget. Perhaps it’s best to mention that their lives revolved around Kansas University, the scene of the crime, or in other words the place where they first met. In fact, now that I look back on it, this seemed to be the only important detail in the Story of the lives, all others were merely supplementary. KU was and still is their joy, their connection to a past that only eludes their grasp today in actuality. A good majority of the conversation was centered around the University and everything that was happening on campus. It was KU this, KU that, and while the two of them liked to involve themselves with all university activities, basketball definitely stole their hearts and kept them locked away until a national champion had been crowned.

In fact, while Dan and Jane were devout church-goers, they seemed to follow basketball as a second religion. If I was there and a game was going on, I knew it was time to spend some quality time with them in front of the television. As you might have guessed, I found myself watching a fair number of KU basketball games under that roof, whether I really wanted to or not.

Through my admittedly limited knowledge of sports fans, to this day I can not think of two more passionate sports-watchers than they. They had adopted a way of yelling at the television that seemed to me as though they were attempting to coach the team through the airways. During the game there was nothing else in the world and winning was nothing less than a fixed obsession. The strange rituals they adopted for luck were probably the oddest of the byproducts resulting from this obsession. I can remember Dan fixing the same game snack, sitting in the same recliner, and propping his feet up in the exact same way, as though there was something in that combination that would usher his Jayhawks on to victory.

However, the most memorable quirks belonged to Jane, and Jane alone. Every game, without fail, she would pull out her perfectly maintained KU Jayhawks sweatshirt, and, more importantly, her lucky Jayhawk pendant. The pendent was made of all gold or bronze, I could never tell which, but was worn dull by all the times it had been handled.

You see, during crucial points in the game, free throws or tight jump shots, Jane would take her luck Jayhawk and start rubbing it al most violently in her right hand. She’d rub it and rub it all the while muttering under her breath at the players on the court, telling them exactly what they needed to know. It was by far her most treasured superstition. I remember smiling bemusedly to myself as I watched her do this, wondering if perhaps she was outliving her mind by a few years. It was endearing to me in its own way, just as all of their rituals were.

But although that lucky Jayhawk may have saved a few games for KU, nothing could save Jane from the toughest match of her life.

At the end of my eighth grade year, what seems to me now like a lifetime ago, Jane died. To this day, I don’t know what finally killed her, though I realize now that that hardly matters. I never guessed that I would miss Jane as much as I do. Every time I talk about going up to Arkansas, I have to catch myself from saying “Dan and Jane’s” and force myself to just say “Dan’s”.

The first visit I made by myself up to Dan’s after Jane died was slightly awkward, and undeniably more sober than usual for both of us. I walked to my room and set my bags down beside my bed while Dan busied himself downstairs with other arrangements. My bedroom was located just next to the living room, so when I was done, I turned the TV on and flopped onto the sofa. It was quite dark in the room, so I reached up to turn on the floor lamp that stood beside my chair. But instead of twisting the on-off switch, my hand met with a light, finely crafted round chain that was hung about the top of the lamp. I pulled it down and looked at it closely in the dim light. It was that same Jayhawk, the lucky Jayhawk that was so precious to Jane during her coveted KU basketball games. Memories flooded my mind from all the times I had sat with her on this very sofa, laughing with her only a few months before.

For some reason, this one small memento meant more to me than all the clothing, shoes and jewelry we had sorted through just after Jane’s passing. I think it was because it was so close to her heart and her passions. The knowledge that she had cared for it and trusted in it made me value it that much more.

I go back to Arkansas somewhat regularly now, something that is bound to change now that Dan has married again. He has a new life now, and although I’m still part of it, I don’t want to seem like I’m intruding. But every time I see that Jayhawk, it’s like she’s there again, chanting for her favorite team. The room is suddenly alive with her lively voice and hearty laughter, and I look on as the TV screen flickers on, rolling a clip of classic sports film. That pendant alone is better than a thousand hours or videotape or a documented diary for storing memories, and will forever hold the spirit of a lady whom so may held dear.