Little Wings (Penguins can't fly...or are they just afraid to?)

This...is my favorite necklace.
It used to have a burnished sterling chain, but it's been polished with age.  The wings were darker, but the wood grain's come through some, probably from the way I tend to absentmindedly run my fingers along it now and again.  It's small and delicate, and it's hard to tell it's there sometimes, but it always is.

I've had this for two years, and it was given to me by someone I love.  Just like this necklace is a favorite, so's the person who gave it to me.   Someone who's great at just being there, even when you don't notice it.  It was part of a gift tailored exactly to me, picked out by someone who knows me extremely well by now and who went out of their way to make me feel cared about that Christmas and many times before and since. .  And I feel...happy now and again when I really feel like I need a reminder that someone out there cares, and that someone's thinking of me, and I feel this laying against the back of my neck.

I'm wondering if that person ever thought that it works both ways.  Because when I go to check if it's still there, or when I go to move the wing back down towards my heart...it's a reminder of them.  If I'm missing them, it's a comfort.  If I'm worried about them, it's something to hold on to.  It's become so much more than the pretty little thing I saw online and put on a wish list somewhere, never expecting to get.

It's on my mind tonight because sometimes a reminder is all you have.  Sometimes you need to trust the strength of something even when it seems far away.  Sometimes you need to just let it be and hope that they know that the wood is worn from all the times they've been thought of in the course of a day, a month or a year.   All the times they've been missed.

This might fall apart in a few years, but what's behind it won't.
And that makes it special.