For most of my childhood, my family veered between working-class and lower-middle class with the occasional bout of hanging just above the poverty line. When my Dad went back to school and finished his BA and then went on to get an MA, that changed. And now my family would probably be classified as upper-middle class. From Sociology, I know that's a pretty rare thing, to change your SES that much in a single generation. I'm really proud of my dad for that.
Even when we were more financially secure, there was still that fear. What if something happened and dad lost his job? So my parents didn't spend a lot of money on frivolous kinds of things, even when they could afford to.
I had always noticed though, that my mom loved Waterford crystal. If you don't know, that's a special kind of crystal that's fairly expensive and is made in Ireland. She'd stare at it in the locked cases in department stores and sigh wistfully. But she never bought a single piece of it. I knew that crystal had a special significance for her. Her father had loved it too.
As soon as I was making decent money, I bought her a small Waterford crystal flower vase for Mother's Day. This was about six years ago now. The look on her face when she opened it was worth every single damned penny the thing cost. And she loved it. Even when I started buying her more pieces of it, that vase was still her favorite one.
Today she called me in tears. Their new dog, Vin Diesel, climbed up on the table she kept it displayed on and knocked it to the floor along with a piece of heavy Kerry glass. The Kerry glass hit the Waterford vase and shattered it. My mom is a very sensitive person and she just couldn't handle it. That vase had meant so much to her.
Her birthday is the 22nd. She's turning 50. I can't afford to buy her Waterford crystal anymore, but I'm going to try my hardest to find something that would mean just as much to her. There's nothing worse than hearing a parent cry, even over something like this.