What It's Actually Like Wearing Something Your Nan Gave You

I get asked about my necklace basically every day.

Not in a "that's nice" way, more like people clock that I never take it off and eventually they want to know why. My mates. My teachers. The girl who sits next to me in biology. My dentist asked once, which was odd because I had one of those suction things in my mouth at the time.

The short answer is: my nan gave it to me.

The longer answer is what this whole post is about, apparently, because I started writing and couldn't stop.

It's a pendant that transforms. From four hearts combining to form a lucky clover. You can change it depending on what you need that day. Heart when you need love, clover when you need courage. The pieces are magnetic so they click back and forth.

That click is the thing nobody warns you about.

Once you start clicking it, you can't stop. It turns into this little ritual: pick a side, think about your nan for a second, carry on with your day. I do it every morning before school. I don't even notice I'm doing it anymore. My hands just sort of find it.

My sister does the same thing. She change hers to clover before every exam and texts Nan a photo. Every single time. Nobody asked her to do that. She just started and never stopped.

My youngest sister needed help with the clasp when she first got hers. Once it clicked shut she looked up at Nan and whispered something none of us could hear. Nan told my mum later that she said "now you're on my neck."

She hasn't taken it off since. She sleeps in it. She showers in it. She clicks it back and forth before bed and tells Nan about her day like Nan can hear her through the metal.

Maybe she can. I don't know. It feels like it sometimes.

Here's the thing I wasn't expecting.

Before this necklace, I loved my nan. Obviously. But I loved her the way you love someone you see at Christmas and birthdays and text when you're supposed to. From a distance, with a thumbs up emoji and a "Thanks Nan!" that took me about four seconds to type.

She sent money for every birthday and Christmas. Bank transfer. Vouchers. And I'd text her a quick thank you and go back to whatever I was doing. Every time. Without fail.

I thought that's what she wanted. I thought she was the sort of nan who didn't do "things." No fuss. Just practical. That was just Nan.

I didn't realise she was sitting on the other side of all those thank-you texts thinking she was slowly disappearing from our lives.

She told me later that one night she was sat at her kitchen table gone midnight thinking about what we'd actually have of hers. Not memories. Physical things. Something we could hold. And she realised the answer was nothing. Six years of birthdays and Christmases and we had nothing from her except bank notifications.

She said she looked at the ring her own mother gave her, the one she still wears every day, the one she turns round and round when she can't sleep, and thought about how none of us had anything like that from her.

And it was just... nothing. Six years of birthdays and Christmases and we had nothing from her except Venmo notifications.

She said she looked at the ring her own mother gave her, the one she never takes off, and thought about how we didn't have anything like that from her.

So she went out the next morning and found these necklaces.

She didn't ring my mum to ask permission. She didn't wait for a birthday. She just turned up on a random Sunday with four little boxes and said "these are for you."

`My dad looked confused. "What's the occasion?" She said: "There isn't one."

I don't really know how to describe what it's like putting on something your nan held in her hands and chose for you specifically. Not money she sent without thinking. Not a voucher she bought in thirty seconds online. An actual thing she went out and found and touched and thought about.

It's just different. I can't explain it properly. It just is.

The first time I held it against my chest I felt something I'd never got from a bank transfer notification. I don't want to be dramatic about it. It's a necklace, not magic, but something shifted. Like she'd thought about me for longer than four seconds for the first time in years. And somehow I could tell.

Everything changed after that.

I FaceTime her now after things that matter. Not because she asks but because I want to show her which side I've picked. I flipped to clover before my driving test and rang her from the car park when I passed. I wore it on hearts the day my mate moved away and I texted Nan at midnight just to say I was having a rubbish time, because she's the only person who wouldn't say "you'll be fine."

We talk properly now. Not "how's school" / "fine" / "okay love you bye." She knows about my friends, about the boy in my sixth form, about the panic attack I had before my presentation. She knows more about my life than most of my mates do.

That all started because she gave us something real instead of money.

My sister Maddie texts her nearly every day now. "Clover for my match, Nan! 🍀" and Nan sends back clover emojis and a voice note saying she's proud. That never happened before. Not once in six years of bank transfers.

Chloe who's ten FaceTimes Nan before dance shows and holds the pendant up to the camera and goes "you're coming with me." Nan wells up every time. Every single time.

And Rosie. She's seven. She told her teacher that her nan lives in her necklace. Her teacher rang my mum to check Nan was alright. She is. She just lives in a necklace now, apparently.

I know someone's going to say "it's just a necklace."

It's not though, is it.

It's the reason my nan went from being a name on a bank notification to being the first person I ring when something good happens and the first person I reach for when something goes wrong. It's the reason four girls in my family wear the same pendant every day and text the same woman from different ends of the country and she saves every single photo.

It's the reason my nan stopped being invisible.

She told my mum last week: "I should have done this six years ago. I wasted six years being scared of getting it wrong.

She didn't waste them. She loved us the whole time. She just didn't know we needed proof.

Right. I know people are going to ask, so.

If you're a granddaughter and you want to send this to your nan as a hint, just do it. She won't think it's weird. She'll probably have a little cry. And then she'll sort it out. That's what nans do.

And if you're a nan who ended up here because something you read made you think about your own granddaughter, yeah. You're not imagining it. She does want something from you. She just doesn't know how to say it because she's fifteen and she thinks she's supposed to want the money.

She's wrong. She'd swap every quid you ever sent for one thing she could hold at 2 AM and feel you there.

My nan found ours here: www.hello-arlo-gb.com

She bought four. One for each of us. She said it took her about two minutes to decide and she spent the whole drive to ours wondering why she didn't do it years ago.

I asked her once if she was nervous giving them to us. She said: "I was terrified. I thought you'd open it and wish I'd just sent money."

Nan. Come on. We'd have worn it that same day even if it was hideous. It's from you. That's all that matters.

It's not hideous though. Just to be clear. It's actually really nice and it does this satisfying clicky thing and yeah. She did well.

She did really well.

If you really want to get the necklace today, simply click here to go to their website.