your life
Splinters of the past How did it happen that a green milkglass sugar bowl became an angel-wing pendant? Martie Swanepoel writes about the stories that the fragments of old memories can tell. projec ts and st yling CARIN SMITH photos ED O'RILEY
I
came across some words by George Bernard Shaw that
Mother , and one of doves in olive wood that a friend brought
justify my over-the-top chandelier. If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you might as well let it dance. An
her from Israel. Along with the brooches, my inheritance was strings of necklaces set with glittering stones, from the days
exuberant chandelier with blue, red and green pieces of glass, brimming with old brooches and necklaces. It shines in magical prisms when the morning sun catches it and it brings me neverending pleasure. For others, old costume jewellery; for me, a sparkling reminder of an exceptional woman s life. It helps to fill the emptiness left by the daily phone call to my mother that I can no longer make. My mother had 50 brooches! Multicoloured bright stones and pretty marcasite. They had graced the lapels of her wool, cashmere and camel-hair jackets and coats since the 1940s. Brooches in the shape of floral arrangements, orchids, birds, swans, cats and dogs. Some with her initial, L. There is one that says,
when my mother regularly went to shows at the State Theatre and the opera. After her death, I gave each granddaughter and daughter-inlaw a small memory tin containing a pendant, earrings, a lapel pin and a string of beads that they could put away somewhere in a safe place, to take out when they miss Ouma. But for the brooches, I had other plans. I didn t want simply to store my mom s precious collection somewhere in drawer. I wanted to make her heritage a part of my everyday life. On the plains of the Masai Mara in Kenya, of all places, my travelling companion Albe Sauer gave me an idea. She had had two beautiful chandeliers made from her mother s costume
72 IDEAS January/February 2022
