i remember the first word i was proud of knowing. yiayia. the single greek word spilled out of my toothless mouth with eagerness, weighing more on my tongue than the others i had begun collecting. the one who wore it was the one who could conjure the lemon soup, the orzo winked at me as i stirred, acknowledging my luck in knowing her. 

she led with her pearls. the milky white ones were the grandest, bigger than the stale gumballs waiting in my plastic machine back home. i used to make stories of those orbs hanging from her neck. to me, each pearl was a piece of her life, a story, a memory, calcified and milky and worn with pride. 

i pictured her hands poised, unflinching, as she strung each moment together ever so gracefully. the pearls never changed, never moved, always resting at the nape of her neck, letting others admire the life she kept close, the memories she rarely shared. others needn’t know the details, but saw the beauty and grace. 

the pearls still find their place on her neck every morning, the first adornment of her day. as she fiddles and rubs the one by her ear. i think of six year old me, naming that one the day she met pappou, feeling his feet under hers as she stumbled through the church’s dance hall. the one in the middle was always uncle chris. he was no longer here, so he found his place on her strand, the one closest to her heart. 

my favorite was the one right by the clasp, the one at the start of the line. in my imagination, this pearl was petrina. it was the only oven in her village, the one in her home, the baker’s daughter. as she rubs, i imagined her conjuring the smell of her father’s bread and the aching from the single straw cot she had snatched from her siblings the evening before. this pearl was where her memories began, where the first precious bulb was slipped onto the fragile line.