I was the only granddaughter born and raised in the same town my Grandparents lived in. After getting stuck with two boys my Grandma had always wanted a little girl, so it should come as no surprise to you that when I came around, I was a little bit spoiled. I was Grandma’s “princess”. She would buy me adorable dresses, fabulous coats, and more jewelry than a girl could ever dream of having.

In my family, Grandma’s spoiling was like the secret she didn’t know that everybody else knew, kind of like her smoking on the back steps while Grandpa napped. She thought she was being so sneaky when she would catch my eye from across the room and motion for me to follow her into my bedroom, where she would proudly proceed to pull pretty boxes containing glittery presents from secret hiding places.

One Christmas when I was in about the ninth grade, she motioned for me to follow her into my bedroom like she always did, only instead of pulling a box out of the dresser she asked me very quietly in her gruff German accent, “are you funky?”. I wasn’t really sure why or what exactly she was trying to ask so after stammering a bit I said “well yeah, I guess I am”, to which she took a sigh of relief and then immediately broke out into uncontrollable giggles. As it turned out, she had been to the jewelry store earlier that day and saw a very unique necklace she wasn’t sure if I’d like. She asked the sales lady if she thought a teenage girl would wear something like that, and the lady asked her “is she funky?”. Grandma thought ”funky” was a dirty word, and that was why she couldn’t stop giggling. I still treasure that necklace.

One could draw the conclusion that Grandma’s spoiling inspired me to fall in love with the fabulous things in life, and you’d probably have a pretty good case. What I loved more though, was the joy that giving it brought to her. Even after Grandma was diagnosed with cancer and couldn’t easily leave the house, she would sit with her credit card and a pen in front of the television waiting for something sparkly to show up on an infomercial. Can you imagine what my jewelry box would look like now if she’d discovered the internet?

My Gram’s been gone for almost two years now, but every time I fall in love with a new piece of jewelry, I think of the joy it would have brought her, and a giggle escapes my throat. In that way at least, we are one and the same.

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This post was sponsored by Ice.com.