In the mid 1990’s, a group of the Lattimore and Morrison family whom live in Australia made our way back to New Zealand to relax and catch up with our extended family. While in the South Island of New Zealand, the weather was perfect for snow skiing and we made our way to one of the most well known New Zealand skiing holiday destinations of Queenstown.
During that trip, my older brother Cameron and I were exploring the Queenstown shops and found our way into a tourist style gift shop – full of the obligatory items such as stuffed Kiwi plush toys. One of the things that caught my attention while looking around were necklace pendants made from jade in the shapes of traditional Maori tribal markings. I was quite taken by them and on a subsequent visit to the shop, picked one up to bring home to Australia.
Once putting on the necklace, I didn’t take it off for months and it turns out, for good reason. As summer approached that year, I was around at a friends place to cool off in the pool. No wanting to damage the leather necklace strap, I took it off and sat it on a near by seat. You can imagine how horrified I was when some friends were fooling around beside the pool, knocked the chair and the jade pendant hit the bricks and broke in half! I couldn’t bring myself to throw it out, so I thought I’d see if I could repair it and thanks for some an unknown super-esque glue available at the time – it worked a treat.
Since fixing it that afternoon, I have literally taken it off a handful of times in over 10 years. When I say handful, I mean literally, I could count the times on my fingers – so few in fact that Claire hasn’t seen me without it in over 10 years. It has survived football, soccer, karate, tennis, swimming, water skiing, wake boarding, motorbikes, BMX, rollerblading and every other thing I can imagine and it made it through completely unscathed.
Enter our beautiful son Hugo in September 2008, positively gorgeous and has little fiddle fingers. He takes great delight in touching, grabbing, fiddling, smooshing, yanking or banging on anything he can get his hands or feet on to. For the last month or so, he has loved fiddling with my necklace and it has stood up to the test – until last week when, after years of wear and tear – is finally undone by an eight month old baby boy!
The question on my mind now is – after it being with me for such a long time – should I replace the worn leather strap and return it to its rightful place around my neck or simply move on?
If the pendant is still intact after braking 10 years ago. My .2c says to hunt down whatever “unknown super-esque glue” was used and give it a crack at leather! :)
Seriously though, you need to get another leather strap and restore the rightful order of things.
…besides what other visual clues will people have to explain why Hugo is a human man tank, other than a potential hint of Maori blood! (Born in Aus though so definitely a potential Wallaby No 1 or 3 :)
Repair and keep on goin’, you can probably get another ten years or so (at least).
Claire asked me the other day why I’d wanted to fix it, for instance was it a lucky charm and it’s not that. To be honest, I’m not sure why I want to fix it – other than the fact that it feels as though it is part of me – I’ve been wearing it for over 10 years and essentially haven’t taken it off.
Nothing else I own from more than 10 years ago do I touch or use on a daily basis, in fact I’m struggling to think of something I owned over 10 years ago that I’d touch once a month. So to have a simple jade lecklace survive such a long period of time, I think it is quite special.
Honey, you know my opinion. MOVE ON!! What AL is failing to tell everyone about his prized possession is that it had become VERY crusty, especially the strap – EEK. I think that Hugo breaking it is a sign of the new and next stage of your life as a Daddy, Al, necklace-free.
Go the naked neck!! :)